To sculpt you need space, to paint you need a canvas. To create a 'virtual reality' you need a bit of all of the arts, and a 3D browser / rendering engine (a 'projector') that 'materializes' your imagination in a interactive virtual 'space'. This virtual space (a 'magic mirror') will fool the 2D / 3D eye, if it so wishes, by looking as 'real' as the virtual image in your everyday mirror, or will be a very 'unreal world' where laws of dimension, scale, gravity, collision, transparency and movement are synthetic constructs (or variables).

The many forms (java, X3D, game engine) of this 'magic 3D mirror-projector' are as remarkable now as the 'motion-picture projector' was in 1896, and the future status of VR will be comparable to the significance that motion-pictures enjoyed in the 20th century. 3D VR and projection of 3D content on the web are evolving works of computer science harnessed by artists to create 'worlds' that are sometimes called 'art', and sometimes 'design', and their mesh objects are found scattered throughout the 3D cafes of the web.

Interpretations of 'what is art' invariable come from many points of view. Engineers don't necessarily share the same aesthetic with the codified and chaotic worlds of 'fine art'. Po-Mo surrealists enjoy the contradictions in all meaning, preferring to rummage the virtual garages of the web. And while academics debate whether VR is truly related to 'reality', gamers have created a mega-industry with little time for such self-conscious distractions or studies of 'meaning'.

Aesthetics, rules and inspirations

Aesthetics are personal and cultural choices. 'Perfection is laziness' Dali once stated. But a mathematician (see video clip of George Francis' Topological surfaces below) replied that 'Perfection (in numbers) is beautiful'. Marcos Novak's 'Worlds in Progress' (below) finds a certain perfection 'in progress'.

3D Art created in a tech environment takes many forms and reveals many preferences for subject and space. There are some that assert the breaking of rules with improvisation, chance and irrational inspiration, and some that assert adherence to logical forms (and its programming languages, geometric spaces, mathematical layouts of space and time).

The mass-market pop 3D world of medieval kitch, orcs, wizzards, sports heroes, war heroes, bad boys, bad girls all playing tits and ass, strike and kill, fly-race-snowboard the course, be a superman, conquer the world are everywhere, a spectacle of pop comix culture meets scary mysto-mythology of power and submission. It's everywhere ad nauseum and on purposeful quests for your bucks. That's the way the global economy of 3D design works. What's important in Japan is important in North America, and everywhere on the ever spinning world wide web. Car detailing, graffiti, international comix are the source of inspiration for the public genre of 3D punk aesthetics and its lasting power is enhanced by more viagra ads to the short-attention-gap XYZ gens and their boomer parents. It is a big 3D / motion-picture / storytelling industry, outperforming Hollywood. And its avatars are getting so good that soon they'll be copyrighted players in their own ACTRA pantheon.

Personal aesthetics

I prefer a hands-on 3D play with allegory and surrealist impulse, at the expense of fascinations with logical forms. You can see examples of this in numeous directories of 'Visual Alchemy'. In my work the aesthetic is a byproduct and not the tutor of these allegorical dances. Sometimes wonderful things happen when one makes a 'mistake'. Within the broad tradition of 'surrealism' I also found an impulse to fashion new and suprising interpretations of seemingly contradictory elements which have no aversion to (or obsession with) mythical forms. The allegorical content of many of the 3D works (including 3D video art, holographic art) features and cebrates these contradictions 'as beautiful' (as in 'lets dance').

Corporate culture and limitations of tools, or imagination.

3D design can be fascilitated by the many available software tools (Cosmo, TrueSpace, 3D FX, 3D Studio Max, Maya, etc.), latest upgrades and techniques, and the neverending styles of 'what's cool on the web'.

So what if the latest trick isn't employed? (The tribe rushes off to find the 'new' as if its a pill to pop to offset the boredom of 'repetition'.) If being 'first' becomes the rule, then everyone is doomed to being 'second' (and, 'gasp', being 'late').

My personal experience has been to mistrust the conceits of the priorities of tech and those that are seduced by the disposable 'new'. These conceits I have seen variously in 3D computer graphics, virtual reality, 3D Video, and holography. They are analogous to the web 'dating game' which strives to fulfill a need for 'updated experience' by constantly trading in the past (partner) for a new (stimulus) experience. Chat, chat. Avatar Mall.

Testimonial sim city:

I have heard that 'VRML sucks' from software programmers (we'll call him 'Paul') who have never created or published 3D worlds or scenes but led voyeuristic after-hour gamer lives of jolts per second. I guess 'it sucks' when speed and 'reality' is only determined by game engine and budget

I have heard that 'good animation' requires 'proper motion capture' which requires 'million-dollar facilities' from a Maya 3D character animator (we'll call him 'Don') who never created an interesting or engaging avatar other than one that looked like his red-haired 'girlfriend'. Nothing like blaming the tech for a lousy love life and lack of creativity.

I have heard that 'good writing' should be created by a office receptionist, a young blonde with big tits, using specially developed algorithms authored by the 'head of software' (we'll call him 'Joe') whose motives were typically residing between his legs. Such 'corporate culture' exists everywhere in a technical field that is full of alienated personalities working in a alienated environment on 'reality' products. It's a pity, since the ship goes down and the 'Paul', 'Don', 'Joe' types scatter to infect other world projects, and on and on.

Personal enchantments

The enchantment with 3D is a very personal experience, and it is the enchantment with color, form, texture, light, motion (as in flying through scenes) and transformation of space and forms that got me hooked in the first place.

My personal enchantment with three-dimensional art and design came from a personal 'place' that was awakened (with wonder) upon the occasion of seeing my first CG 3d models, 3d animation, holograms, and virtual reality (VRML) worlds.

What captivated me 'in the first instance' was the synthetic ability of objects and scenes to exist in once immagined, now real, space and time. The enchantment with objects 'appearing in space', moving and mutating, intersecting with known (photographic, sculptural, motion-picture) realities and departing from this known reality was captivating in itself. The creation of worlds beyond the 'known' became a passion, one that has sought out other artists in this endeavor and one that compells unadulterated creativity in ongoing works created typically 'far from the marketplace' of generic conventions.

Certainly the marketplace has changed and will continue to change due in large part to the efforts of an emerging generation of new media artists. This is a welcome aspect of our cultural process and should be encouraged not discouraged by the producers and financial officers of media companies where profit becomes the sole determination, and where 'formula' displaces courage to try something radically different.

The mysteries of '3D space', and that which is possible within it, are the places where I am interested in going, if only to return to that 'place of the first time' which, as poets wrote, is a place of remarkable beauty, our partner in dance.

(More on these topics, plus examples, will be added as time permits.)

A discussion of early aesthetics in my VRML works is contained in the legacy world directory, 'Uroboros - VRML 2.0'.