Immersion
An essential aspect of new media in all its forms is its immersive nature. This was heralded in the history of panoramic painting and it is now reaching new levels of transformational experience in the immersive digital visualization systems of virtual and augmented reality.
Immersion is a traditionally important term for the arts, describing the sensual immersion in an artificial environment. While in the Stone Age animal drawings in the Lascaux cave were brought to life by the flickering of the fire, and while in the Sistine Chapel man entered into an all-encompassing representation of the divine, digital technologies in various ways transport us into a state where we forget that the sensual stimuli are technical in nature. Immersion is when we are part of the action. Cross Reality (XR) - or Extended Reality - and Mixed Reality (MR) are used as generic terms for different paradigms to create hybrids of overlapping of the physical and digital worlds. These include virtual reality (VR), which is currently making its way into our living rooms with the HMD, and augmented reality (AR), to which we are slowly but steadily getting used to by way of the smartphone.
As new media that go beyond sculpture and the screen, they have effects on us as human beings and on our society that are not yet sufficiently understood. The ZKM's research areas have a long tradition of dealing with immersive media, and at the ZKM Hertz-Lab intensive research is being conducted on the latest technologies in the field of immersive display technologies.
Virtual Reality
One of the currently much discussed developments is virtual reality. In the meantime, the highly developed image and tracking quality allows such a degree of immersion that the viewer's experience themselves and their bodies as a natural part of the scenery.
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A Volumetric Capturing System provided by Evercoast can be used by guest artists to realize their own projects. The system, equipped with 15 depth cameras, captures the whole body of a person in motion.
Augmented Reality
In Augmented Reality (AR), virtual objects are superimposed on reality in such a way that they appear to the viewer as if they were part of reality. With a smartphone you get a rudimentary impression of what special AR glasses can do.
The Panorama-Technology
Founded 1995 the Panorama Technology meanwhile consists of a screen configurable with several projectors and an expandable software system tailored to the needs of artistic applications. In the meantime more than 50 artistic works have been realized with it.
Fulldome Projection
In "EVE", developed from 1993 under the direction of Jeffrey Shaw, viewer's can interactively control an image window with moving images within the dome-shaped architecture, which is around 9 metres high and 12 metres in diameter.
Panorama Camera
From 1998 to 2004, the Institute for Visual Media developed various high-resolution 360° panoramic cameras to capture moving image material. Four prototypes of the camera were developed, with which various artistic projects were realized.
Immersive Projection Environments
In addition to the technologies more prominent in the public eye, the ZKM has a long history of researching and developing immersive projection environments that can be used by several visitors simultaneously.
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