The history of 3-D projections in the Ars Electronica Center began in 1996 with the legendary CAVE, a 3x3x3-meter box created at the Electronic Visualization Lab in Chicago. The 2009 premiere of Ars Electronica’s Deep Space created a sensation among industry insiders as well as laypeople of all ages. Infrastructure configured by the Ars Electronica Futurelab produced 16×9-meter images on the space’s wall and floor that represented a viewing revolution.
Pushing the Envelope
The crystal-clear depictions of high-definition photos, stereoscopic videos, 3-D visualizations and interactive games featured in Deep Space expanded the boundaries of technical feasibility. Now, in 2015, Deep Space has been taken to the next level.
Total Makeover
Following a major technical upgrade in the summer of 2015 and the installation of eight 4K projectors running at 120 Hz (as compared to the previous equipment’s 30), the imagery screened in what’s been renamed Deep Space 8K is in 8K resolution—each picture consists of 8,192 × 4,320 pixels. The data stream it takes to generate these images—an awesome 23 gigabytes per second—is processed by special high-performance computers in real time.
Lab and Stage
For one thing—and to the delight of audiences in the Ars Electronica Center’s premier attraction—this raises the quality of the visual and spatial experience to a never-before-achieved level. For another, this opens up a whole series of possibilities for developing and experimenting with new visualization concepts. Thus, the upgrade from the “old” Deep Space to Deep Space 8K is an enhancement to which the often-overused term quantum leap can justifiably be applied. Visiting the 2015 Ars Electronica Festival wouldn’t be complete without beholding Deep Space 8K.
With the friendly support of XI-Machines and Ton&Bild
Ars Electronica Blog
“Sharper pictures, brighter colors and starker contrast are in store for visitors to Deep Space 8K following a technical makeover wrapped up in early August.” Read more on the Ars Electronica Blog!
Deep Space 8K Program
Now, in 2015, Deep Space has been taken to the next level.
The very best of the regular Deep Space 8K–Program.
As much sophisticated knowhow on the part of Ars Electronica Futurelab engineers went into the conception of Deep Space 8K as high-performance technology went into that concept’s execution.
The Soul of the Cube (SOTC) is a virtual being, an abstract creature that is visible in between applications, it is both a “host” and the inner self of its complex infrastructure.
New mobility concepts, trailblazing interfaces, the language of forms and the future of brand identity will be the subjects of talks by Vera Schmidt (DE) and Holger Hutzenlaub (DE).
The works singled out for recognition this year that are being presented at the 2015 Ars Electronica Festival explore the aesthetic-artistic latitude the teletext provides.
On the basis of physical fundamentals, Siemens has developed an innovative rendering algorithm that provides superbly detailed, photorealistic images.
In this presentation, Matthias Günther (DE) of the Fraunhofer Institute for Medical Image Computing (MEVIS) focuses on the function of the heart.
An application developed by the Ars Electronica Futurelab transforms Deep Space 8K into a virtual anatomy theater in which viewers can observe the human body in 3-D.
Deep Space 8K now lets visitors behold virtual reconstructions of historical sites in 3-D and walk through them in the truest sense of the word.
*White Point* is based on the premise that the observer is situated in the vanishing point. Visitors thus seem to move into the center of the light inside this single pixel
All three works are takes on “cooperative aesthetics” in which visitors to Deep Space 8K explore the changes their own movements bring about in the displayed projections and, in some instances, on the acoustic level too.
GameSpace turns the Ars Electronica Center’s Deep Space 8K into an interactive multiplayer gaming arena.
Combining highly detailed, fast-forward motion pictures with the extraordinarily high degree of resolution in Deep Space 8K opens our eyes to everyday events that we’ve never seen in this form before.
Jeffrey Martin specializes in creating photos of cities, usually shot from the top of a tower or skyscraper.
In2White is a personal homage by photographer Filippo Blengini (IT) to the glacier-and-snow-covered realm of the white mountain: Mont Blanc.
*Post Refugee City* records the realities of everyday life in a refugee camp—in this case, Al Zaatari in Jordan—and represents an effort to find new ways to deal with such modern-day mass migration.
The Alfred Fried Photography Award is more than just a photo contest; it’s the world’s only competition that asks entrants to visually answer the question of what peace looks like.