Corpus Corvus

Corpus Corvus (2011) is a stereoscopic 3D mixed reality performance artwork based on the Pacific Northwest Native American myth of the raven who steals the sun and creates the universe. As a doctoral dissertation in Digital Arts & Experimental Media, the art research process contextualizing this project explores and discovers an emerging poetics that extends the physical body and human sensory system into immersive media perceptual hyperspaces.

Physical Immersion Within a Stereoscopic 3D Projection

Corpus Corvus uses a novel mixed reality performance environment that merges stereoscopic depth space with physical depth space, constructing the illusion that the performing body is immersed within a three-dimensional media projection.  Stereoscopic animation is projected onto a semi-transparent theatrical scrim with parallax constructed such that the animation appears behind, or upstage of, the scrim surface.  Theatrical lighting illuminates the body conjointly with the animation.  The audience wears DepthQ LCD shutter glasses synced to an infrared emitter, enabling digital stereoscopic vision.

Movement in a Mixed Reality 3D Image Field

Corpus Corvus explores the relationship between movement of the physical body and stereoscopic animation in a mixed reality 3-dimensional image field. The stereoscopic animation is generated both from motion capture data and from gesture-based kinesthetic media composition processes based on physical choreography. Through precise temporal alignment and stereoscopic theatrical effect, the projected animation is perceived to respond dynamically to movement of the body in time, and to surround the body in physical space. The multi-sensory composition is completed by a sound score based on ravens’ vocalizations abstracted through human imitation and technological processing.

21st Century Creation Myth

Corpus Corvus is a creation myth enacted in an immersive mixed reality environment.  Building upon the foundation of the Native American myth, it expands the metaphors of the raven as hybrid animal-human-god and the stealing of light – and creation of a universe from a stolen sun.

The Corpus Corvus

The title Corpus Corvus refers to the body of the raven.  The composition is an assemblage of kinesthetic-audio-visual dilations into ten corporeal dimensions: formation, throat, wing, eye, claw, belly, brain, heart, spine, and dissolution.

Corpus Corvus: Stereoscopic 3D Mixed Reality Performance

Publication of doctoral dissertation.