A Comprehensive Medium for Exploring Emotions

The Alternative Realities in Networked Environments [ALTERNE] working group has completed the project and the results are being transferred to a new web site. The ALTERNE project objective was to construct an Alternative Reality platform to support the development of digital, interactive and participatory artistic activities. We define Alternative Reality as a generalization of Virtual and Mixed Realities beyond the common “space-based” simulation. The aim of the technical development is to extend the current techniques of Mixed Reality to support the more advanced experimentation with reality and virtuality that are required by the process of artistic creation. While traditional Virtual Reality essentially addresses the construction of visually realistic synthetic worlds, ALTERNE supports additional layers that will make it possible to explore other concepts such as: causality, relations between time and space, alternative laws of physics, alternative life forms, etc., in a more radical fashion.

ALTERNE platform brings a high level of integration between the current techniques supporting Mixed Reality, graphics, interaction and behavioural models. It promotes the artistic development and explorations of various forms of perception of spatiotemporal orders by placing the human body and its digital surrogates at the centre of the aesthetic considerations. One example is to provide a more comprehensive medium for the exploration of emotions, from the movements of the human body to the socialized interpretations of action.

Certain tools developed by ALTERNE will be made available over its web site and the MARCEL site as well. Some network tools are already posted for downloading.

Information Society Technologies: ALTERNE is a multi-annual research and development project supported by European Commission within Cross Programme Action 15 (Technology Platforms for Cultural & Arts Creative Expressions) of DG Information Society (reference nr. IST-2001-38575).