Virtual Retrospect 2005 - ARCHEOVISION

Version en ligne
Tiré-à-part des Actes du colloque
Virtual Retrospect 2005
Biarritz (France) 8, 9 et 10 novembre 2005
Vergnieux R. et Delevoie C., éd. (2006),
Actes du Colloque Virtual Retrospect 2005,
Archéovision 2, Editions Ausonius, Bordeaux
H. Fischer
Le 3D n'est pas un espace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pp.149-150
3D is not Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pp.151-153
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Le 3D n’est pas un espace
Hervé Fischer
LE 3D N’EST PAS UN ESPACE
Hervé Fischer
Artist and philosopher. Associate professor at UQAM, Montreal.
[email protected]
www.hervefischer.net
Depuis le Quattrocento italien, après cinq siècles de
valorisation de la réalité, qu’on a appelé le réalisme, nous
tendons aujourd’hui à construire une interprétation digitale de
la réalité, qu’on appellera le numérisme. Et cette nouvelle
interprétation et mise en scène de la réalité, nous l’appelons la
numérité. Certes, nous pouvons le regretter, car la réalité n’a
pas que des épines, mais aussi des charmes. Nous pouvons
ressentir une profonde nostalgie pour le bon vieux réalisme,
qui nous a fait vivre une fascinante aventure. Mais il faut
l’admettre, la planète est devenue un réseau d’informations,
dont les hyper langages nous donnent d’ailleurs le spectacle
d’un évident retour au symbolisme.
Planète-écran
Le monde s’est aplati. Même les représentations en trois
dimensions des mondes virtuels se présentent davantage
comme des modes de manipulations des images d’objets que
comme des mondes en profondeur. Ce sont les gestes de la
souris qui en créent l’illusion et cette pseudo profondeur est
perçue davantage comme un déplacement en arabesque que
comme une immersion.
De fait, les techniques numériques d’images en trois
dimensions ne sont pas moins conventionnelles que celles de
la perspectiv e euclidienne inventée par les peintres du
Quattrocento. Les débuts de l’animation en 3D, dans les
années 80, ont d’ailleurs recouru aux mêmes stratagèmes
qu’utilisèrent les artistes de la Renaissance. Ils ont abusé des
sols en damiers, des colonnes et fenêtres masquant la
discontinuité des plans en profondeur, et des tuyères
vertigineusement fuyantes évoquant les chemins et rivières
dont le rétrécissement suggérait jadis l’éloignement en
profondeur. Mais ils ont bénéficié d’un outil supplémentaire
très efficace : le déplacement et la vitesse.
En fait, cette profondeur des espaces numériques est suggérée
beaucoup plus par les liens, les mouvements, et notamment les
rotations, par l’interaction, pour ne pas dire les muscles de la
main qui manipule la souris que par le regard.
Nous y avons ajouté avec le temps les magies des effets
spéciaux du cinéma : les zooms avant et arrière, les variations
dans la résolution des images, suggérant le déplacement du
focus de l’œil, les bleutés du lointain (comme chez Léonard
de Vinci), les éclairages dramatiques. Mais il demeure que
c’est essentiellement le mouvement de la main et non la
géométrie, qui crée l’illusion de la profondeur. Et il est même
important de souligner que les espaces virtuels ne sont pas des
espaces en profondeur, mais en mouvement. La troisième
dimension de ce qu’on appelle les espaces en 3D, n’est pas la
profondeur, mais le temps gestuel. La planète est hyper,
constituée de liens qui génèrent le mouvement. Et elle est
afocale. Elle n’a plus de points de fuite ni d’horizons,
capables d’exprimer la profondeur inventée par le
Quattrocento. C’est le mouvement de l’intervenant qui
suggère l’espace. Et nous ne parlerons plus de l’observateur,
de celui qui regarde, mais de l’intervenant, interactif.
De la profondeur au temps, de l’espace à l’expérience
Le virtuel n’a pas de substance. Il est un langage et une
expérience, car il implique toujours l’interactivité,
contrairement à l’espace classique. Il génère l’apparition sur
l’écran de fichiers successifs de données. Les espaces
numériques n’ont plus de linéarité, plus de globalité, plus
d’unité : ils sont devenus des séries de fragments, de
séquences, de connexions, dont seul le cerveau fait encore ce
qu’il faut appeler la narration en arabesque, plus que la
construction. Ce qu’on appelle encore “les espaces
numériques” sont des expériences, souvent discontinues,
plutôt que des espaces au sens traditionnel du mot. De ce
point, ils rejoignent la conception dite primitive de l’espace,
telle que nous la décrivent les ethnologues. Les tribus
anciennes, nous dit -on, ne décrivent pas un espace selon des
références optiques ou géométriques, mais selon l’itinéraire de
ce que l’on y rencontre, les expériences que l’on y vit, les
objets que l’on y croise, une savane ou une forêt que l’on doit
traverser, une rivière qui s’interpose, des dangers auxquels on
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Virtual Retrospect 2005 – Plenary Session
November 8, 9, 10
renvoi à des banques de données, à des sources d’information
disponibles, fait du recours au virtuel, même dans un cas aussi
restrictif que la muséographie, une réalité augmentée plus
“vraie”, plus “réelle”.
s’expose, des personnes ou des animaux qui apparaissent, le
temps que cela prendra. Bref, ce sont des lieux narratifs
interactifs. Et c’est bien ce que deviennent – ce que
redeviennent – les espaces numériques d’aujourd’hui. Dès
lors, les expériences interactives d’aujourd’hui, à l’âge du
numérique évoquent plus la rhétorique narrative des cultures
orales anciennes, que la géométrie euclidienne. On ne peut
plus parler d’espaces, mais d’expériences.
Faut-il le déplorer ? En aucun cas ! Les expériences sont de
l’information, plus élaborée et plus complexe que la géométrie
d’une perspective euclidienne. Ainsi, la peinture cubiste nous
livre une expérience plus riche, plus complète d’une figure
humaine que les portraits classiques, unidimensionnels. Elle
intègre plusieurs angles de vue, la mémoire de nos rencontres
avec cette personne, la multiplicité des regards, qui parfois
révèlent des aspects différents, voire contradictoires d’une
même personne – comme peut le révéler la simultanéité du
visage de face et de profil. Et il en est de même avec les
espaces virtuels. Ainsi, même dans le cas d’une librairie visant
à conserver et à communiquer des objets ou des sites du
patrimoine culturel, et impliquant une rigueur scientifique,
une richesse d’informations objectives, et le respect
fondamental des objets présentés, on admettra que les
technologies numériques permettent de livrer beaucoup plus
d’informations sur ces objets, y compris en les remettant dans
des contextes historiques, en suggérant la reconstitution des
parties manquantes, des couleurs originelles, des usages, en
zoomant sur un détail ou sur la structure de la matière, en
montrant à la fois le recto et le verso, le dessus et le dessous,
l’extérieur et l’intérieur, ou en dévoilant l’invisible grâce aux
rayons X. Bref ces technologies permettent d’augmenter
considérablement l’intérêt de cette documentation
patrimoniale en transformant la reproduction traditionnelle
statique et pauvre, en une véritable expérience de lecture
enrichie de toutes les connaissances disponibles. L’attrait
pour le public, spécialisé ou non, renforcé par l’interactivité de
la mise en scène, et de la manipulation, est de ce fait aussi
considérablement accrue. La science ne perd rien à cet
exercice, bien au contraire, et la multiplicité des liens, le
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Et si nous considérons d’autres champs d’activité, on
comprendra vite que les jeux aussi bien que le commerce
électronique, l’éducation ou l’imagerie scientifique peuvent
tirer un avantage considérable de cette nouvelle conception.
Le multimédia trouve là un domaine d’applications
extraordinaires, dont on n’a encore que peu idée, mais dont on
ne doute pas qu’il soit appelé à se généraliser rapidement. La
lourdeur des fichiers a certes jusqu’à aujourd’hui beaucoup
limité ces usages aux cédéroms et aux DVD. Mais déjà les
techniques d’analyse et de compression des informations
minimales requises pour transmettre un fichier permettent de
mettre de plus en plus ces librairies en ligne. Et de nouvelles
recherches d’algorithmes, comme celles de la société
québécoise 3dlogok (qui utilise le logiciel québécois de
SGDL), démontrent qu’on peut alléger considérablement
cefichiers, en s’échappant des accumulations de polygones
auxquels on recourt traditionnellement pour composer les
images numériques. Dans un mouvement inverse et aussi
important que celui du Quattrocento, l’âge du numérique,
cette fois, dévalorise le réalisme et survalorise une vision
irréelle augmentée du monde, le numérisme..
3D is not Space
Hervé Fischer
3D IS NOT SPACE
Hervé Fischer
Artist and philosopher. Associate professor at UQAM, Montreal.
[email protected]
www.hervefischer.net
Since the Italian Quattrocento, after five centuries of
attempting to valorize reality – otherwise coined as realism –,
we are now trying on the contrary to build a digital image of
reality, a trend which we may no longer call realism, but
numerism. And this new interpretation and staging of reality,
we propose to call numerity.
Of course, we may regret the glorious adventure of realism
and experimental science, as reality does not only bristle with
difficulties, but also bears a certain charm. We may even feel
a profound nostalgia for the good old time of realism, which
has been a fascinating adventure and experience. But we have
to admit: our planet has turned into a network of information
and hyper languages which also means the return of
symbolism as powerful as in the middle ages, even if the
meanings are no longer religious, they still evoke the power of
a virtual world.
The screen-planet
The world is becoming flat again. Even the three-dimensional
representations of virtual worlds, appear to us more as devices
to manipulate images of objects, than as a possibility to move
into the depths of a profound space. The illusion of depth is
created more by the motion of our own hand on the mouse,
and of the arrow on the flatness of the screen, than by an
experience of entering into a space and moving around
objects. And this pseudo depth has much more to do with the
arabesque of my perception, than with any immersion.
In fact, the digital techniques of 3D imaging are not less
conventional than the Euclidian perspective system of
representation of depth created by the painters of the
Renaissance period. The early attempts of 3D computer
simulation, in the eighties, exploited about the same
stratagems that were used by the artists of the Renaissance
period. They have immoderately used checkerboards,
columns, windows hiding the discontinuity of the distance
levels, wide shallow pipes developing with velocity into the
cyberspace, alike the rivers and ways getting narrower to
suggest the increasing distance into the XVe century
landscapes. Well! The digital artist benefits from additional
and very efficient tools, which allow movement and speed.
We may observe that this depth of digital spaces is much more
suggested by the links, associations, movements, rotations, by
interactions, if not to says by the behavior of the hand muscles
which manipulate the mouse, than by the space itself, which is
anyway a total and conventional illusion.
In attempting to represent 3D space, the digital artists not only
have the static space at their disposal, but also the time
experience, which especially offer the expressivity of
succession, the magic of film making special effects, such as
zooming in & out, variations in the level of resolution of
images, which may suggest a variation of the focus of the eye
and therefore create the illusion of a deeper distance, bluetinged backgrounds (as Leonardo da Vinci himself used),
dramatic lightings and contrasted shadows. In any case, we
owe more the illusion of immersion to the hand’s movement
than to a geometrical convention.
In the case of a non interactive 3D spatial presentation, the
illusion is obtained by the movement of the virtual camera
creating a succession of images, which is about the same
process as creating the illusion.
We may here come to our main point: it is not the geometry,
which creates the illusion of 3D virtual spaces, but the
movement. The third dimension of so-called 3D spaces is not
the depth, but the action time - similr to our planet of to-day,
which is becoming hyper, as a hypertext or a web made of
links generating movement. 3D space is no longer a
geometrical space, but a hyperspace.
Our planet is becoming afocal, and so is virtual 3D space. It
does no longer relies on vanishing points suggesting the depth
invented by the Renaissance conventions. It is the movement
of the interactive user or of the acting virtual camera, which
creates the illusion. We should no longer speak of the
observer, but of an interactive process of construction. And we
speak significantly more of immersion than of visual
representation.
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Virtual Retrospect 2005 – Plenary Session
Moving ahead from depth to time, from space to
experience
Virtuality or numerity is not of substance. It is a language and
a process or experience, always using a real or simulated
interactivity. It is creating the appearance on the screen of
successive files of digital data through logarithms. Digital
spaces have no more linearity, no more unity: they appear as
successive pasted fragments, links, sequences, the unity of
which is constructed by the brain as a narration developing
itself into an arabesque. It has nothing to do with a geometrical
building. So-called digital 3D spaces are not boxes; they are
experiences, usually discontinuous processes. They no longer
serve the traditional concept of spaces.
November 8, 9, 10
colors, the reconstruction of missing fragments or even very
large parts. It allows us also to make inscriptions more
readable, to zoom on details of the object, to show
simultaneously both sides of the same object, to move around
and follow the narration of a text or of a painting, to enter into
a simulated completed building, to analyze possible
movements of people inside this virtually reconstructed
building, to figure out a ritual, to penetrate into the structure of
the matter or reveal underlying motives thanks to X-Rays, and
in the case of a mummy, to discover its inner secrets without
destroying it.
As such, they remind us of the so-called primitive conception
of space as defined by ethmologists. Ancient peoples did not
“see” a space according to geometrical or even abstract
orientation points, but according to the movement, to what
you meet when you walk, to what you experience, to what you
may hope or fear, to what may be useful, symbolically
significant, to sequences of forest or savanna, to a river which
you have to get across, to possible dangers or events, to people
or animals whom you may meet, and to the meals you should
take with you or to the number of nights you have to foresee.
In other words: these primitive spaces are interactive and
narrative. Is this not exactly what digital 3D spaces are?
Todays’ interactive digital processing evokes more the
narrative syntax of the oral, multi sensorial ancient cultures,
than Euclidian or even modern geometries. The notion of
space is becoming obsolete in favor of experiences.
Should we mourn the scientific objectivity of the old
geometry? Are we returning to a kind of primitivism or even
obscurantism? On one hand, for sure not. Experiences are
accumulated information, more elaborated and richer than
simple geometry which appears as a drastic reduction towards
the phenomenology of perception, the memories and the uses.
As an example, cubist portrayals gives more information, a
deeper approach to somebody’s human figure, than classical,
one-dimensional paintings. It brings together a series of points
of view, of interpretations, somehow memories of different
meetings we may have enjoyed with this same person, whom
may even be contradictory in behavior or attitude. A
simultaneously frontal and side view portrayal may reveal
much more. Digital experiences may bring the same new
possibilities. Somehow, to use a comparison, we could say that
digital 3D spaces are cubist in their nature.
Speaking now of an archeological library dedicated to the
conservation and communication of ancient objects or
patrimonial sites, with a scientific rigour, including objective
information, the basic respect of the original artifacts, we must
admit that digital technologies make it possible to deliver what
we call enriched information or augmented reality. We mean:
a wide bunch of related information, including its supposed
context, uses, symbolic values, a simulation of their original
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And it makes it possible to keep a digital copy of any object
for preservation and remote access thanks to broadband
internet networking. This in urn enables work groups of
researchers to work together internationally without traveling.
In other words, the digital tools allow considerable
improvement in research as well as communication methods,
by replacing the traditional static and poor patrimonial
documentation by an enriched media presentation offering
many added values such as all available information and an
easy international access to the archeological virtual libraries.
It may also create a greater interest from the general public as
well as from the experts, thanks to the possible interactivity
and manipulation without putting the artifacts at risk.
Archeology as a demanding science, which has of course
always been somewhat traditional in its attitudes, loses
nothing of its spirit to this new practice; on the contrary it
benefits from new research and diffusion tools. By
reconstructing broken objects or ruined sites, it may make it
possible build new hypotheses, verify theories, arouse the
scientific imagination, awake professional vocations, and
finally benefit from artifacts which are more informative than
the real thing, and mean more not only to the public, but also
to experts.
3D is not Space
I have mainly spoken of virtual archeology here, which was
the topic of the 2005 Virtual Retrospect Festival in Biarritz,
France, where l first presented theses ideas. If l may pause to
contemplate the other fields of activity here, let’s say that, if
we seriously take into account these new considerations of 3D
virtual spaces, it may help us better understand the
development not only of scientific imaging and research, but
also of the game industry, the improvement of distance
learning and even retail e-commerce.
Digital multimedia is far from being fully developed in
comparison to its future potential. As a matter of fact, we still
think of it as imitating the older media, but we know we have
not yet discovered its full capabilities. Another challenge to be
considered is the fact that the digital files are too heavy for a
fast internet loading. We need a new species of algorithms to
allow a quick real time access to rich digital data on line. This
will also happen through the third generation of broadband
web networks. We are still in the very early beginnings of the
Digital Age.
On the other hand, let us underline that science itself is
developing into a technoscience which is more and more
Hervé Fischer
slaved to computing tools and languages. We could think of
researchers using special effects and joysticks to interact with
the digital visualization of their scientific objects. Is it not
what they already do? Most of today’s science, be it from
astronomy, physics or biology, is more about building and
modeling than observing their objects of study. In many
aspects science today is developing into digital imaging. And
the more powerful computers and language become, the more
audacious may be their hypotheses and creations into a digital
virtual parallel world of what is our trivial reality. Somehow
reality is getting poorer in comparison to numerity, which is
increasing permanently the density of the instrumental
information it is accumulating. The urgent need for
institutionalizing an ethical frame for digital scientific
imaging
Is it not fascinating? Yes indeed! Is it not risky? Of course!
But if we think of virtual archeology, we immediately see the
opposition, which may look paradoxical, between the attempt
to respectfully actualize the past and the seduction of the
digital tools to reinvent it in spectacular or even entertaining
shows! Hollywood archeology? We have seen Quo vadis!
Virtual archeology, and science in general is facing the new
empowerment offered to researchers by the digital tools. And
therefore we may need soon a kind of protocol or frame of
how to use the fake colors, the flexibility of algorithms, the
power of computing languages and the gaming spirit of
joysticks in full respect of scientific ethics. Otherwise, one day
– and this day has already happened in a few labs of cloning
or other genetic manipulations – astronomers will invent new
beautiful galaxies and simulate a fake big bang, or biological
chimera, or archaeologists will reinvent the ruins of the lost
Atlantis, as if they had seen it for real. And they will zoom for
our pleasure into incredible details! Because science is more
and more enslaved not only to digital tools, but also to
imaging, therefore to 3D imaging, we urgently need an
international seminar which will start fixing the rules of what
could be a true scientific protocol protecting the credibility of
science, and making it possible to easily identify what may be
a spectacular, but fake scientific discovery or result.
Is this not a fascinating era?
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