In the last few years, 3-D technology inspired innovative approaches to animation, film and even fashion-related projects.
The project “Now and When Australian Urbanism”, coordinated by creative directors John Gollings and Ivan Rijavec and with 3-D renditions by pioneering Australian studio FloodSlicer, run by Daniel Flood and Sam Slicer, employs instead ground breaking 3-D stereoscopic technology to investigate Australian landscapes from new perspectives.
The installation presents visions of five of Australian’s urban and non-urban regions – focusing on Melbourne, Sydney, the Gold Coast, Kalgoorlie and Newman – as they are through John Gollings’ oblique stereo photographs taken from a helicopter flying 30 km/h at 2,000 feet using Nikon’s new D3S model, and as they will be in 2050 and beyond via futuristic visions - modelled initially in Autodesk 3ds Max® software and developed using Infitec, the latest 3D technology - comprising oceanic cities, vertical agglomerates or floating towns, presented by different architectural firms.
Apart from presenting utopian architectural scenarios, “Now and When” introduces new ideas on how photography could be used to create more detailed representations of projects for architects and designers.
“Stereoscopic vision allowed us to change depth, scales and perceptions of the way objects and things come together,” says Daniel Flood. “Though its application to architecture is fairly limited at the moment because the technical process is time-consuming, things will change in future and I’m sure this technology will become a core part of architectural presentations in future.”
What inspired the installation?
John Gollings: We wanted to find new ways to show which are the problems of modern cities and, rather than being negative, we decided to be positive. So we asked different architects to design a futuristic city that would solve problems such as crime, traffic jams and lack of water and communication between people. We got very futuristic proposals that could be conceived as approaches to the way we could design the city of the future.
According to the proposals, which will be the main features of these futuristic cities?
John Gollings: Modern cities will see an increase in density, so they will be jammed together in massive structures. But the good thing is that we won’t be using cars because it will be easier to move around and go to visit people, this means we will have to get on with our fellow human beings a lot more than we do now.
In your opinion, which of the different scenarios suggested is the most subversive one?
John Gollings: Good question. There are so many ideas coming out of this project that it is hard to pick just one. There are intriguing scenarios, like the proposal that features sensors up in space gathering information that is going to enable you to the protect the city, so, if there are cosmic rays coming out of the sun, you can put up some sort of electronic umbrella over the city and that’s illustrated as a floating structure with neural connections down to the ground. This is just one illustration of the idea of being able to protect yourself for example from radiation. I suppose the most subversive proposal is the one relating to the oceanic city that deals with raising sea levels and envisages a civilisation living in capsules underneath the water.
Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future?
John Gollings: I’m optimistic, in fact I’m a climate change sceptic, I don’t think man is necessarily ruining the planet. In fact I think the changes happening to the world are caused by the rest of the universe and space and they are therefore normal. I don’t even think population is going to go down, numbers will probably rise, but I believe that science and technology will solve a lot of our problems and that’s why there is such an endless application of technology in our future predictions.
The project gives you the impression it was a true collaborative effort since it reunited together different professionals, how did you manage to coordinate them?
John Gollings: I was trained as an architect and this discipline teaches you to work on collaborative projects. No one behaved like a dictator, everyone was given freedom and everything worked incredibly well!
Do you think sound designers Two4K managed to create through their compositions the perfect aural experience to complement the images?
John Gollings: Ironically, sound designer Nick Murray trained as an architect and then switched to music. I explained the project to him and composer Carl Anderson and the sound was taken beyond what we could have imagined. I was thrilled when they used the sound to create vibrations or recreate in sound very similar techniques to the ones used for the visual effects.
The images featured in the installation were taken in 3-D stereo, which is the difference between this technology and 3-D?
John Gollings: 3-D wouldn’t have allowed to take in the information as quickly. When images are digitally projected in stereo, the results are so compelling because this technology offers such a clear relationship between the contents and the picture, allowing us to investigate spaces both in and out, as well as up and down, and to take in the information instantly. People’s attention is getting shorter and shorter and nowadays we are more used to watch quick things for example on YouTube rather than sit down and watch longer videos. In future the whole media presentation will be quick and easy to grab and understand and commercials will suck people in, allowing them to experience an absolute sense of total reality.
There is an amazing sense of depth that gives a certain sense of vertigo in the images, is it because of the oblique stereo aerial photography?
John Gollings: You had the right reaction: this is the main purpose of the installation, allowing people to get a mind and body experience and be quite disturbed and physically thrown around by the images and sound effects.
Was there ever a moment while taking the pictures when you lost heart in the project?
John Gollings: Yes there was! I’ve always been a pretty competent photographer and I knew I could make it work, but there were moments when I thought it was getting impossible. I had to learn to keep on separating the cameras and, once we managed to put them 66 feet apart, we finally found a way to get two perfectly matching pictures. Astrophysicist Paul Bourke, a leading expert on stereo projection, combined these photographs to create 3D images using a third-generation projection system. The moment we found a way to combine the pictures was very exciting because it also gave us an insight towards the ultimate future of true virtual reality. In future, after achieving quantum computers 3-D holographic technology, rather than having a flat screen on their walls, people will have a life-size holographic recreation of the world they’re looking at inside their living rooms.
In the last few years we have seen the most viable explosion of 3-D technology in the whole world, how do you feel about it?
John Gollings: All technology is pushing towards 3-D, and it’s not just animators, directors and designers who are using it, but also scientists and doctors who are using this technology in medicine to do operations, so this is a serious technological development. As a photographer, I really want to keep on pushing the boundaries.
Is Australia at the forefront of this technology?
John Gollings: Australia is so far away from everyone. But we excel in many different fields because we have very innovative people doing interesting things here. I suppose we are a lucky country because we don’t have the social problems other countries have and we survived the economic crash compared to the rest of the world.
Are there any ethical, social and political issues you would have liked to tackle through this project but didn’t manage to?
John Gollings: I would have liked to explain all the projects in more detail: everyone got about 30 seconds which is not long enough to explain our thoughts on future cities. I think political issues could have been explored in more detail. A lot of people are scared of change and they are really frightened about what a future city would be like but I want to educate the public to be positive about the future and not be scared about change.
In the past you were a fashion photographer, why did you move onto architecture?
John Gollings: I worked in fashion for 20 years, shooting in Milan and doing the big jobs in Australia, but then I switched to buildings since I found it much more important and socially relevant to produce a body of work documenting the environment. I was trained as an architect, so I guess I just got back to my roots!
Will the installation be touring after the 12th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice (until 21st November)?
John Gollings: Yes, it will. Deyan Sudjic, the current director of the London-based Design Museum wants it to go to London, but it will probably be showcased also at the Moscow Museum of Architecture and in Finland. Over the next two years you are going to see it a lot around the world and that’s exciting because it means it has captured a lot of people’s imagination!
Credits: "Now" images - Melbourne, Mount Whaleback Mine (Newman), Sydney, "Super Pit" goldmine (Kalgoorlie) by John Gollings; "When" images: "The Oceanic City" by team Arup; "Multiplicity" by John Wardle Architects and Stefano Boscutti; "Symbiotic City" by Steve Whitford and James Brearley (Credit: FloodSlicer); "Saturation City" by McGauran Giannini Soon (MGS), Bild + Dyskors, Material Thinking (Credit: Ben Statkus (Statkus Architecture), Daniel Agdag, Melanie Etchell, William Golding, Anna Nguyen, Joel Ng); "A Tale of Two Cities" by Billard Leece Partnership Pty Ltd.
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