New Media Art Projects, Panoramic Images and Live Video as Interface between Real and Virtual Worlds

This paper starts with the concept of a virtual gallery where art works, mainly pictures, are presented on the world wide web. One of the first such galleries, the Slovenian Virtual Gallery existing from 1995 is being considered. Today, such galleries are conceptually not much different, however, they typically contain much more material of higher resolution in 2D and 3D. Several open source tools are available for development of such virtual galleries. To gain some notion of immediacy, efforts were made to mix such virtual worlds with live video from actual spaces and locations. A novel user interface was developed using panoramic images of the location where the internet camera is located. The live video image is shown overlaid on the static panoramic image so that when a tele-operator manipulates the camera he gets a much better understanding of the remote location. A new media art installation was produced. First, successfully the concept of the virtual gallery and the live video panoramic interface and later interactive art installations was taken up where video or images were used as primary means of interaction and feedback. Five such art installations are presented; the sixth project shows how this concept can be applied to adaptive digital signage.