The interactive work "Global Interior Project" by Masaki Fujihata is a networked sculpture which creates a relationship between the virtual and physical space and the objects. Users can meet in this environment and will contact each other in a completely new way ...

"Global Interior Project" is a networked multi-user virtual environment where people can meet, talk and discover the metaphysics of reality.

It is an example of communication media design, which demonstrates new possibilities of connecting people in a new way. The aim of this project is to visualize the meta-mechanism of electronically networked space and communication, while moving back and forth between 'real' and virtual space. Hence, the word real means your living space, where you can manipulate a virtual world with a device such as a trackball and see the calculated image on your screen. A remarkable feature of this project is the possibility of setting up a model as an actual object to represent the architecture/ construction of virtual space. It is constructed with computer-controlled boxes that have an actual door. The status of this door signals the existence of someone in virtual space. As a result, it is possible to make an extraordinary link between the virtual and the real.

Details of the Project

The terminal for displaying and manipulating calculated images of virtual space is called the "Cubical Terminal", and the boxes representing virtual space are called "Matrix Cubes". At the "Cubical Terminal", participants can manipulate themselves in virtual space, while their bodies remain in a real world.

Virtual space is designed in this project with a certain number of cubical rooms, and all the rooms are interconnected. The interior design of each room resembles the interior of the Cubical Terminal. Participants can move from room to room by navigating from the Cubical Terminal.

"Matrix Cubes" are made up of stacks of boxes with doors. These represent the links between virtual rooms or stacks of "Terminal Cubes" or stacks in the real world. The Matrix Cubes thus function as a miniature / metaphor / map of the virtual space. In this system, it is possible for a participant to have a threefold existence: Real Me, Virtual Me, and Virtual Me in the Actual World. For example, an action conducted with the image of Real Me through virtual space causes a reaction on the part of Virtual Me: Where are you? What is the meaning of your address? Where is your location? How is your existence supported? The whole topology of your existence will be shaken up.

The Cubical Terminal

A participant may interact with this virtual world through a Cubical Terminal containing a 3D graphics workstation and a projector. The terminal is connected to the server. People can meet and talk to one another in this virtual world, even when they access it from different locations.

A realtime rendered image, which interacts with the participant's trackball movement, is projected onto the screen inside the Cubical Terminal. The participant can see the image through the window of the Cubical Terminal. The image of a cubic room with a window on each side is projected inside the Cubical Terminal. There is an object, such as an apple, a hat, a doorknob, etc., in each room, which indicates that room's identity.

By manipulating the trackball, participants can change the perspective of themselves and can go through the room and even dive into objects. To leave a room, you simply go out one of the windows in the room. The view from the virtual window has an earth texture reflecting the concept of the project. When you go out a window you will hear a warp sound, and then the location changes to another room that has a different object. If there is more than one person in a room, their faces are mapped on a cubic avatar, so they can see and talk to each other.

Virtual Cubic Rooms

The Virtual World consists of a certain number of virtual cubic rooms. Each of the interactive images in the picture here has been extracted from projected images inside the Cubical Terminal and may be explored through manipulation on the part of the participants. Each room contains a symbolic 3D image that identifies it. Participants can move around in a virtual room by manipulating Virtual Me with the trackball mounted on the Cubical Terminal and may also go to a different virtual room by going through the window (each of the four sides of a virtual room has a square window, and each window is linked to a different room). The Cubical Terminal has a similar window on the side as well, which imitates the window of a virtual room. People accessing this space from different sites may use audio devices to talk to one another as through a telephone. If more than two participants are in the same virtual cubic room, the other participants will appear as an avatar with a video image of the participant's face mapped on it.

Matrix Cubes

Each box of the Matrix Cubes reflects the state of the virtual rooms, which means that each box corresponds to a particular virtual room. For instance, if someone accesses the virtual room X from one of the Cubical Terminals, the door of the box X opens on the Matrix Cubes. These cubes show the real-time activity of the virtual environment and provide a visualization model of the networked virtual world. The essential idea here is that the Real World is ONLY a map of the Virtual World for the Virtual Me.

Background Infrastructure

The first prototype was implemented using 'InterSpace', which was developed by NTT Human Interface Laboratories. The InterSpace server runs at an NTT software corporation in Tokyo and also at the San Francisco branch. This server has numerous ISDN connection ports, and it is currently linked with Stanford University, Golden Gate College, Cal Arts and others. We are now trying to coordinate a connection with MoMA in New York, V_2 organization in Rotterdam and ICC in Tokyo.

The server consists of a UNIX workstation and a special sound mixing console. The UNIX workstation is used for coordinating the users' behavior in virtual space. It requires special hardware specifically designed for the console to be able to mix various sounds from different places. The boards of this hardware convert analog/digital signals and then send these signals back to the user's terminal. The sounds are mixed according to parameters determined by the user's position in virtual space.