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Freeman, John Craig

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Digital access to this material is pending artist's approval. Materials may be viewed onsite at the Goldsen Archive, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Kroch Library, Cornell University.

Throughout my artistic career, I have been engaged in an experimental inquiry into the impact of new technologies on the production and dissemination of art and culture. For the past decade, I have been developing "Imaging Place", a place-based, documentary, virtual reality project that is a user navigated, interactive computer program combining panoramic photography, video, and three-dimensional digital technologies. Although the method borrows freely from the traditions of documentary still photography and filmmaking, the "Imaging Place" method departs from those traditions by using nonlinear narrative structures made possible by computer technologies and telecommunications networks; its database format is therefore experienced as a process of navigation and excavation, allowing the user to uncover many layers of history and meaning.

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Recent Submissions

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  • Item
    2006 Rockefeller New Media Foundation Supplementary Material
    Freeman, John Craig (2009-05-18T16:03:30Z)
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    2006 Rockefeller New Media Foundation Proposal
    Freeman, John Craig (2009-05-07T15:08:11Z)
    "Imaging Place: the U. S./Mexico Border" is a place-based, virtual reality project designed for museum exhibition. It is a user navigated, interactive computer program that combines panoramic photography, video, and three-dimensional digital technologies to investigate and document the effects of globalization on local communities along the border. The work is projected up to nine by twelve feet in a darkened space with a pedestal and a mouse placed in the center of the installation, which allows the audience to interact with the project. Activated by the click of a mouse button, the interface leads the user from global satellite images to virtual reality scenes on the ground Individual users can then navigate an immersive virtual space. Rather than the linear structures of traditional documentary, "Imaging Place" allows the story to unfold through spatial exploration. In addition to the notion of experiencing a story by navigating it, "Imaging Place" seeks to provide the means of excavating the story of a place, allowing the user to uncover layers of history and meaning. The project will take two hours to navigate, and it will be bilingual with both English and Spanish subtitles.