Life Drawing and 3D Figure Modeling with MAYA: Developing Alternatives to Photo-Realistic Modeling

Abstract

The author describes his prototype for a split-brain user interface developed for the interactive documentary Anita und Clarence in der Hölle: An Opera for Split-Brains in Modular Parts. Using documentary video from the 1991 Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court, this interface delivers two independent video and audio streams in parallel to each hemisphere of the brain. Inspired by accounts of split-brain research and anticipated by experiments of the Surrealists, this interface-like work in augmented virtual reality and wearable computing aims at "enhanced" interaction while creating a new aesthetic experience.

Whether we like it or not, the human mind is constantly being split, like a house divided, between the part that stands for the known, and the part that stands for the knower.

-Antonio Damasio [1]

Motivation

The interface I describe here was directly inspired by an experiment designed by Michael Gazzaniga for presenting one story in two parts to each hemisphere of a split-brain patient (i.e. a patient who has undergone a surgical procedure that severs the connections between the two brain hemispheres) [2]. Gazzaniga's experiment led me to the idea that it might be possible to target each hemisphere of a normal brain by delivering video and audio directly to the separate visual and auditory pathways.

Such an approach to user interface design is similar in motivation to research in wearable computing and augmented virtual reality, which aims at enhanced interaction. However, my primary motivation is to provide a dedicated and novel interface for the creation of a new and different kind of aesthetic experience for an interactive documentary drama. The "split-brain" approach offered a compelling way to present an interactive non-linear digital video documentary of the 1991 United States Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.

Content

Using excerpts from the videotape documentation compiled by the C-SPAN Videotape Archives [3], Anita und Clarence in der Hölle: An Opera for Split-Brains in Modular Parts focuses on the moment in the Senate Nomination Hearings when Anita Hill, a graduate of Yale Law School, came forward to accuse nominee Judge Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. The harassment purportedly occurred when Hill worked under Thomas at the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission. Anita Hill alleged that Thomas often spoke in the workplace about pornographic movies he had seen. According to Hill, Thomas once demanded to know, "Who put a pubic hair in my Coke?" Clarence Thomas denied these allegations and denounced the hearings as a "high-tech lynching." In the end, the Senate voted 52 to 48 to confirm Thomas, who was then sworn in on 18 October 1991 as the 106th justice of the United States Supreme Court.

This incident has been chosen for the very reason that Anita Hill's testimony was directly contradicted by that of Clarence Thomas. Supporting witnesses cross-examined by Republican and Democratic senators provide numerous examples of conflicting statements. The split-brain interface presents the contradictory testimony directly and simultaneously to the user, creating a state of "artificial" cognitive dissonance. Users are witness to their own brains' workings and the limitations of their conscious perception. In trying to decide whom to believe, users must also confront and examine their own beliefs and biases.

Polyphonic Multi-Tasking

The title of the piece refers literally to the ordeal of the two main participants. It is a story with tragic characters, a clear conflict and a well-defined beginning, middle and end. In the tradition of grand opera, it is an epic narrative that emerged from the realm of the personal and private to play out on the national televised stage. Against a backdrop of gender, race and class, this drama pits the political forces of the right and left, and a man and a woman, against one another in a lurid spectacle of "she said, he said."

With the simultaneous playback of the opening statements by Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas, the listener literally hears two voices at the same time. Although not a conventional...