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Synopsis: Atlas is not just a collection of maps, it's a space of imaginary journeys, a thing to be touched, swiped and used. My project aims to open up the land of film, the same way original Mercator's Atlas opened up world's geography. It invites you on an armchair exploration of the creative possibilities enchanted in the film medium.
Keywords: atlas, spectatorship, emancipation, collaboration, parallax shift, chronotope, VR, kinects (movement sensors), knowledge production, cognition, learning, teaching, artistic research, arcades, FilmArcades, tacit knowledge, situatedness, refraction, human-machine interface, cyborg manifesto, visual thinking, film analysis, archive, Bits&Pieces, conditions of possibility, inscription, exploration, practice as research.
Perspectives of future development:
Technical:
# Due to time and financial constraints it might be hard to optimize Filmarcades for VR before the graduation show. In the manual above, you've seen just an outline of the functions I'd like to introduce if the project was to be developed further. I am convinced that it would shine brightest with the use of HTC Vive - with wands employed not only for navigation but also editing. Who wouldn't like to swipe, collide and glue videos together in a manner of Tom Cruise's John Anderton from Spielberg's Minority Report? As fun as it sounds like, I strongly believe that it would not only be a gimmick but a genuinely new and exciting field of exploration. If the basic version of Filmarcades is supposed to open your eyes to the new possibilities hidden within familiar tools, this could be an opportunity to create a tool that is truly born within the conceptual frame of the FilmArcades (and doesn't exist outside of it).
# Another technical development would be to make FilmArcades accessible online. The whole concept dwells on the idea of participation. Still, at least for now, that characteristic is going to be limited to the visitors of the exhibition (and other prospective spaces of its presentation). We're working with the cutting edge technologies that are largely still in their alppa or beta versions. Until now, there's no satisfying solution for keeping the high quality of recordings, small filesizes and satisfying performance. We're currently working on our custom-made improvements, but most certainly we won't be able to introduce them too soon.
Institutional:
# The back-end of the project is going to consist of archival materials from Bits&Pieces collection that were already digitized and are in public domain. As much as that particular collection fits the objectives of FilmArcades, I see it as a flexible format that may be reappropriated for any archive/collection and group of researchers/artist. I'd like to work with interested institutions who'd be interested in employing this concept for actively engaging the public with their works and affiliated artists.
# As FilmArcades might also be seen as an enhanced version of a tutorial, I'd also be interested in working with educational institutions that would like to make this semi-collaborative solution a part of their curriculum (or e-learning platforms).
Procedural:
# So far, I've been mostly focusing on video-essayists and their practices. This interest springs from my own concerns and area of expertise, but also from the necessity of narrowing down this particular project (not mentioning technical obstacles that still severely limit the area of recording). Nevetheless, conceptually, I'd be really interested in expanding my study into other sorts of procedures. First, within the art world and film (VJs, graphic novelists, bricoleurs). Next, in other disciplinary fields (science, technology) that might enrich our reservoirs of tools and procedures in a truly interdisciplinary manner (choosing objects on the brink of different disciplines).