reblogged: When Actual Materiality Surpasses Even Real Virtuality

HypoSurface is a disruptive material technology. It’s been plenty blogged in the last week, so I won’t bother repeating what’s already been said, especially concerning How? and Why? this works. Anyway, what draws my attention, in reference to this blog, is when I see a real technology approaching, even surpassing, what can be done when creating space using immaterials.

[continue reading@ Metaverse Territories]

[Photo taken from the excellent inworld Second Life art installation, NMConnect on the NMC campus]

Light that distorts matter

In the category of material/immaterial mashups, here’s one from Siggraph:

Mutating material objects with light, as if they were video, with Morphovision [New Scientist].

Metaverse, the Media

Material, spatial and formal structures will evolve that possess qualities unique to metaverse environments. These structures will be employed to fabricate its built environment, its spatial texture and its social potential. Once integrated into the fabric of a specific world, this structure will become the substance of its built environment. From this point on, metaverses’ will no longer have to rely on RL paradigms of representation and fabrication, and can develop a unique visual language, different than, for example, that of video games, cinema, or RL. Even if certain elements in the metaverse resemble RL buildings, cities or suburbs, this will be either a coincidence or a convenience; Metaverse, the media will dominate spatial expression. This emergent structure will become the very substance of its built environment, made possible by a unique creative force, a product of its spatial topology, its physics and its communications. In short, we will see the emergence of the metaverse as a medium of creation, and it will be through this medium that the metaverse will be formed, and will inform.
[click to zoom]

To this end, it is essential to investigate the common, material and (im)material compositional elements employed by all metaverse environments, their global conditions, so that they can be adopted locally, by specific metaverse platforms, so as to apply to their unique physical and social environments. How will we know when this media has evolved and that we are, in fact, using it to build the platforms spaces?