DynaFleur Art Installation – Where Photography Meets Interactivity

Amalthea Blanc surveys the SL arts scene for New World Notes

Many exquisite Second Life art galleries are designed to be a mere replica of real life institutions. While these installations have their place and role in this community, artists Douglas Story and Desdemona Enfield have taken a new approach. The exhibit contains the detailed, close-up floral photography of Douglas Story in an experiential and highly interactive journey of color and music.  Read on for some more insights into this adventure!

Have you ever repeatedly said a word until it almost changed meaning? Story's macro photography operates by the same principle-- seeing plants and flowers this close opens up the perception to new depths. The interactive trip through a giant flower is an interactive exploration meant to bring you to this surreal mindset.

The path itself is organic, culminating in a social area surrounded by a few close-up photographs. The scale becomes overwhelming as an avatar approaches the image and the semitransparent veil slowly uncovers bold colors and shapes.

There's a great Aren Mandela machinima of the installation available on the official Dynafleur site (scroll down.)  The entire installation also takes advantage of Second Life's collaborative properties: the landscape was tastefully laid out by Poid Mahovlich, the layered sound effects are Dizzy Banjo's work, and the interactive scripts were developed by Desdemonda Enfield using Keystone Bouchard's open-source Reflexive Architecture scripts.

This beautiful installation itself is hosted on the Princeton South sim; click here for a direct teleport link.

Amalthea Blanc also covers SL arts and culture for SL Art News.

Comments

[Douglas Story]

Thank you for the kind words, Amalthea. I'd like to add that this piece was a total co-creation with my work partner Desdemona Enfield - her contribution was much more than only doing the scripting (not that that's anything to sneeze at: the script work was considerable and very involved.)
The contributions of Dizzy and Poid were also crucial, but Desdemona and I were on this together from the inception.
Also, there's an excellent video made my Kitty Lalonde that may be viewed here:

http://www.vimeo.com/464659

[Amalthea Blanc]

You're very welcome, Douglas. I really enjoyed your exhibit. I edited the post to reflect Desdemona's contribution :)

Until next time!