Research

Holographic Messages with C Bangs, Greg Matloff and Space Science collaborators 

We proposed that holographic structures could enhance the design of Light Sails – both solar and laser driven.   While this research is being conducted the Holographic Messages project seeks to engage public imagination by including holograms containing images and information with the probes we send into Space.

Our first holograms on a Cornell Tech Alpha Project ‘CubeSat’ satellites carrying an experimental solar sail. The 2021 launch from the International Space Station was cancelled due to covid precautions, with the team now working towards a 2025 space flight. 

Press: ‘Scientists Want to Send Holographic Messages to Nearby Stars on Light Sails‘, Becky Ferreira, Motherboard Tech by VICE

Publication : Holographic Structures for Interstellar Exploration presented at the International Symposium on Display Holography, Seoul 2023

Exhibition: Postcards from Earth: Holograms on an Interstellar Journey | Temporary Exhibitions

Draw Within Water with Sky Rolnick (Jump into the Light) and Alon Grinsphoon (echoAR).

Tools to enable people to engage and create with immersive technology were developed.  For the Draw Within Water collaborative experience participants draw in virtual space and can populate the underwater scene with artist drawn sea creatures. Virtual sea creature could be taken home on QR code stickers using echoAR platform.

The first iteration of this project Draw Within Water included music composed by Keith Patchel and artwork by Spacer Arts, Lydia Powell, Jessup, Alexandra Patz and Ioana Pioaru. Installed at the HoloCenter on Governors Island in 2019.

 

Article about the project on Medium Collaborative creation in augmented reality

The Emergent Holographic Scene

My doctoral research focused on the affect of cross-referenced movement in viewing spatially animated holographic images.

Relationships between the movement of the photographer and movement of the viewer were used to produced a sense of dynamic shaping. I considered my holographic images as mappings of a hyperlinked terrain. The holographic scene emanating from anchored visual elements, around symmetries or along paths. The dynamic and spatial qualities of the holographic scene emerged  by drawing on the viewer’s perceptual experience. The activity of enfolding and unfolding connected perspectives became an expressive form in my practice of capture, composition and installation design.  

The emergent holographic scene : compositions of movement and affect using multiplexed holographic images – PhD via RMIT University

The Visual Protagonist

Research into the roles of avatars and embodied reference

As a means to create visual anchors and references to my animate holographic scenes I experimented with including my body into the images while photographing urban landscapes. 
 
The visual protagonist will often look at the camera – at the viewer, in one place in the spatial image sequence and into their world at another.  A shared action of looking creates an empathic embodiment connecting the viewer to the dynamics of the holographic scene. 
 
 
Three panel hologram 'Holoscape' by Nick Normal and Martina Mrongovius

The Collective Image

More and more we experience a collective visual landscape. What is the holographic structure of a shared view?

In the we’re all looking holograms the act of photography becomes an anchor, with the relationship between photographic moments hinging the holographic composition.

The holograms map streets and architecture into diagrams. Figure 8 on Drummond Street produced a zoom effect, with weightless inversion of direction as the viewer moves past the image. 

For HoloScape Nick Normal and I assembled all the # images of Conflux Festival 2009 across New York City and made a diorama, stop-motion animated by people who dropped past our festival site at Flux Factory. The next year we exhibited the resulting three panel hologram at ConfluxHQ.

Students at the Academy of Media Arts, Cologne also engaged in this research, creating their own collective image holograms.