The Isle of Purbeck

The Isle of Purbeck JEREMY GARDINER CD-ROM, 1996 either the result of intense looking o r myopic nostalgia. Pre-Raphaelite landscape painting suggested that nature, though illimitable, could be possessed. Each leaf, flower, and pebble could be recorded with the same attention that Victorians brought to their natural history collections. Using computer-modeling and image-processing techniques today, a similar detailed digital recreation can be made with the same multiplicity of pictorial incident and crowded detail. The Isle ofPurb~ckproject is a series of topographical landscapes that form the core of an interactive sketchbook (Fig.1). The goal of the project is to create the geniu~loci or “spirit of place” of an area of Dorset in England called the Isle of Purbeck. This peaceful scenery is ancient, and looking at the real thing or at simulations invites imaginative travel into the more or less distant past. The series of virtual landscapes includes Corfe Castle, Handfast Point, and Athelhampton Court Garden. Within the CD-ROM is re-imagined a whole world, silent and secret, hushed in twilight, sunk under hot afternoons, a place of accumulated history. Incidents reveal themselves to the spectator at dtfferent angles and in different combinations through immersive experiences. The I s l ~.fPurl7eck CD-ROM was developed over a twoyear period [I]. The first stage was the plein-air painting and drawing executed on the Isle of Purbeck itself. The second stage was the recreation of these sites in the computer, using wireframe models and jD renderings of locations on the island. How do you encapsulate the exceptional place and the unforgettable day? Each of the interactive segments of the Isle of Purbeck contains QuickTime VR files that allow the viewer to navigate through the jD landscapes [z]. These topographical scenes form the core of the interactive environment. Virtual reality represents one moment, continually; painting shows one moment; it is how we perceive the world to be. The characteristic of reality is that it is made up of frozen moments [j] or discrete fragments of time perceived one after another, like the interactive nodes in each of these scenes. The English art critic John Ruskin, living in a preDarwinian period, prompted a radical revision of the art of “Athelhampton Court Garden,” a QuickTime VR node in i%e Isle OfPuhck. tain today. Working with ray tracing [>I, it has been possible to transcend the tight linear detail that R u s h preferred and express those atmospheric conditions which the Pre-Raphaelite technique could not encompass. Just as you move about within a picture with your eye, the sensation that you have in each landscape node of the Isle of I’urbeck is one of being enclosed by order and yet at liberty to navigate within it. It is an architectural sensation, albeit a roofless one. Views and axes suggest themselves, though they can be cut across with a gaze. To be able to gaze across an interval is a sign of leisure, education, and seriousness. Gazing seeks to confine what is elusive and to counter the fleeting moment with a prolonged look, which in itself is a sign of permanence [GI. This piece also encompasses time travel, in the sense that the viewer has the illusion of entering some other place and period through a virtual window. Time travel is a purely speculative venture, encouraging daydreams and reverie. Traveling in this manner is an imaginative act, an act of memory and reflection. For the traveler, each landscape of The Zde o f Purbeck becomes a magnetic center for emotion, responsive and meaningful. References and Notes I. Thc proiect team for Isle ofPurheck includcd Jeremy Gardiner, Carlos Delgado, Donald Freeman, Jose Lxzino, Erasmo Labaut. Yelena Monzina, the New World Quartet, Enrique Sacasa, and Alcs Viarubla. 2. A spinoff of the Macintosh QuickTimc moxie display softwarc, QuickTime VR allows the user to na\igatc within a movie-likc environment using the mouse. QuickTime VR movies can be made using video footage, still photographs, or computer renderinq. 3. Marcia Pointon, “The Representation of Time in Painting A Study of William Dyce’s ‘Pegwell Bay: A Recollccaon of October 5 th, 18j 8’”’ Art Histoy I, No. I...