Margaret Dolinsky
Blue Window Pane II

Margaret Dolinsky, Edward Dambik Indiana University Bloomington USA

Markus Greunz Institute for Media and Communications Management Switzerland

Carlos Orrego Bigheart.net Canada

Joe Reitzer EVL, University of Illinois at Chicago USA

"Blue Window Pane II" is a CAVE art experience that stages the virtual environment as performance and projective construction. Participants discover a non-linear narrative through a subversive and confrontational stream of consciousness movement. This non-hierarchical movement is theatricalized in architectural spaces inhabited by surreal characters.

The initial mosque-like setting is the scene of establishment and a familiar point of return. Each direction creates a point of confrontation with the symbolic ego by presenting a psychic dilemma. Each direction continues the choices that unfold the multi-layered events of self-determination: unexpected encounters, passageways, epiphanies and brick walls.

The "Angels of the Room" line the mosque, stand as columns and guard the large arched windows. These angels send out warnings and appear almost to take flight when approached. At one end of the mosque there is an icon on the wall that holds a gold skeleton key. By touching the key with the CAVE's navigation wand, the icon grows very large. The icon opens to become an arched passageway made up of multiple silhouettes which leads into the "Inner Sanctum."

At the opposite end of the mosque is the masque of a woman's face. As we move closer to her, she opens her eyes and chants at the confrontation. A closer look within her self transitions the scene to the inner tunnel of psychic sound. Elsewhere in the mosque, windows shatter, walls open beneath shimmering pools of glass and stairways appear. Each event is meant to reflect the unexpected events that occur daily in the real world.

The CAVE is a virtual display theater that presents a visual spatial media of shapes, landscapes and sounds that establish a system for construction and symbolic transformation. Participants are given the stage to exercise the guidance of their cognitive structures and ascertain the meaning and content of the virtual experience. To inhabit the virtual space is to transform the projection. The uncharted and undefined medium of Blue Window Pane II requires its portrait to be painted with symbol systems of both virtual reality and art adventure.