ART/CIS 3720
Playing with Space and Time


ticket

UPDATE: 7:36 PM Tuesday - Server issues are resolved, with tourist access enabled. Please follow the original instructions: click the "Tourist" button in the login dialog, and enter a name and email. Let it update the software if prompted.

Active Worlds - TimeWarp

Welcome to TimeWarp, the strange and wonderful world created for Playing with Space and Time, an experimental course at Cornell University.

At High Noon on Wednesday, May 10th Timewarp, a virtual world created by students in the new course Playing with Space and Time will open to the Cornell Community. This playful 3D online multi-user world features projects created by the students as they explored the features of the medium of virtual worlds and builds on their experiences over the semester with media ranging from pencil and paper to digital video.

Playing with Space and Time is a multi-discliplinary studio art course funded through a Faculty Innovation in Teaching award, a Provost initiative. It is taught by Barry Perlus, professor of photography (Art, Architecture, and Plannning) and Margaret Corbit, research outreach manager of the Cornell Theory Center (CTC) and instructor in CIS. CTCuni is managed by CTC as a resource for the University and hosts the extensive virtual worlds of the CTC's SciCEnt/Scifair Outreach Programs. You can learn more about our class on our Space/Time Wiki.

We invite you to download the browser and try out the interface of Active Worlds prior to our gallery opening. You may even try your hand at building in the worlds. However, creations in the Building World are only temporary and the world will be wiped clean at the end of the project and/or if it gets overloaded.

Download Active Worlds browser for Windows


Install the browser and log in as a "tourist".
Building World opens May 5 for play. TimeWarp will open to visitors at High Noon, May 10.


Questions/problems: send email to Margaret Corbit.

Direct Teleports to Project Spaces


Note: If for some reason you do not land on a platform after clicking a link, try the link again so the platform has a chance to load.

TimeWarp Center

Bri

For all its 3D glory, ActiveWorlds is actually very limited in the effect the user can have on the environment. For my project, I wanted to work within these limitations to create a space where users could interact with the environment and each other in a nonverbal way. The medium I chose to do this was sound. My space is filled with virtual 'instruments' that people can play, allowing users to have a sonic conversation or a musical jam session.
NOTE: To experience this, be sure to have your computer's sound turned on!

Glenn

I recognize the interactions between athlete and pole as a quasi-dance. Beyond the extreme physical demands of the pole-vault, it requires substantial mental toughness and concentration as both a pre- and co-requisite to a successful vault. While much of the corporeal demands of pole-vaulting are unattainable through digital media, this project seeks to bring heightened awareness to the cognitive processes of the event. By reading about the body-positioning and specific maneuvers of this 'dance' and simultaneously incorporating those concepts while 'moving' vicariously through your avatar and the stick-figure in the navigable flip-book (movement twice removed), you may start to learn and appreciate the physical and mental demands of the pole vault as well as develop a notion of the energies which transform the athletic event into ephemeral art.

Megan

My project combines architectural documentary photographs of an abandoned schoolhouse with a fictionalized soundscape, as an exploration of both time and space. Walk through photographs and click on them to trigger sounds. You can either try to move through the rows of pictures on the ground and then fly up to the other loosely organized "floors" and rooms or just wander and explore by your own route. You will hear layers of sounds if you click multiple pictures within a short time frame. In some cases you will also be able to hear additional sounds if other users trigger them. For a full description of the project and the full-quality still images (some of them), please see my page on the wiki.

Phil

Explore dimensions of Space, Time, Sound, Sequence and Interactivity while wondering around Phil's corner of ActiveWorlds. Climb a giant sculpture, lose yourself in the maze, get trapped in a cage, or just relax in the living room. The point is to play and have fun. How do you find Phil's area? Look for the hot-air balloon when you enter our world. One word of warning: be careful where you click.

Serge

Some useful keys for Navigating Active Worlds