“Multi Mega Book in the CAVE,” a project by the F.A.B.R.I.C.Ators artists collective produced in conjunction with the Ars Electronica Futurelab’s Artist-in-Residence Program, illustrates the transition from print to digital media.

This CAVE application opens with a maxi-page of the multimedia installation “Multi Mega Book,” which explains the transition from print to digital media. The user experiences two epochs of human history—the Renaissance and the Electronic Age—that are blended together into a unique environment with which the user can creatively interact. An idealized Renaissance city featuring famous buildings constitutes one world; the other is a CD city embodying a digitally networked communications process in which everything happens interactively.
Here, navigation and interaction often take place in surprising fashion. They are designed to get visitors to take the leap from the Renaissance to the Information Age, to enable them to compare and contrast two different modes of communication, and to show how mathematics, innovation, art and state-of-the-art technologies have been linked to one another in both epochs. From a wider perspective, “Multi Mega Book” is a metaphor for means of communication through the ages.
The “Multi Mega Book in the CAVE” project was produced by the F.A.B.R.I.C.Ators artists collective and presented at the Ars Electronica Festival 97.
Credits: Casalotto Giose, EVL (Electronic Visualization Lab) of the University of Illinois at Chicago