Breaking Boundaries with Chalkroom: VR as a Canvas for Storytelling

The metaphors of windows, mirrors, and frames have historically shaped Western art, setting boundaries that can restrict innovative, immersive artistic expressions. These metaphors suggest that art is something to be viewed from a distance, like looking through a window, which positions the viewer outside the artistic experience, merely observing the intangible from afar.

This idea is reinforced by the physical attributes of traditional display technologies. Rectangular screens, prevalent in everything from cinema to smartphones, align well with the human binocular field of vision, which is approximately 155° by 120°. Thomas Edison standardized this alignment in 1892 with the 4:3 NTSC aspect ratio, shaping the early visual formats of cinema and television, and establishing a viewing experience that mimics looking through a window.

The practicality of rectangular screens further cements this metaphor. Their shape efficiently organizes visual data into rows and columns, maximizing the use of space and making the content easy to navigate. This layout is not just a matter of convenience but also echoes familiar forms and structures in human-made environments, such as windows and doors, reinforcing the window metaphor in artistic works. The design suggests a clear separation between the viewer and the content, emphasizing the artwork as a medium through which we view another reality rather than a space we can enter and interact with directly.

Renaissance Techniques: Brunelleschi’s Mirror and Alberti’s Window in Western Art

Two pivotal concepts that have enduringly shaped Western art since the Renaissance are Brunelleschi’s Mirror and Alberti’s Window. These methods, pioneered by Renaissance artists, were devised to achieve accurate linear perspective in their artworks.

Brunelleschi’s Mirror, a blend of artistic innovation and scientific inquiry, was used by Filippo Brunelleschi to depict the Baptistery of the Florentine cathedral. This technique involved lines converging at a single point, creating an illusion of depth on a flat painting surface. Brunelleschi employed a grid system similar to modern-day muralists, transferring the viewed scene into corresponding grid squares, albeit reversed as if seen in a mirror. He then inserted a small hole in the reversed image, through which he could view the original scene via a mirror, allowing for a highly accurate, perspective-correct repaint. This method, suggesting that a painting could mirror the visible world with precision, marked a significant evolution in the use of perspective and linked mirrors to the artistic process, influencing Western art for subsequent decades.

Inspired by Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti developed a related technique known as Alberti’s Window. In his influential treatise, "De Pictura" (1435), Alberti built upon Brunelleschi’s methods and encouraged artists to create a convincing three-dimensional space using light and shadow, as well as varied poses to enhance narrative depth. Alberti’s method involved a gridded frame, similar to Brunelleschi’s, where coordinates were precisely scaled and transferred onto canvas. This approach enabled artists to render their environment with realism in the medium of their choice, typically paint during the Renaissance period.

Modern Computing: The Evolution from Brunelleschi to the Desktop Metaphor

For artists, technological advancements have the potential to disrupt traditional conventions shaped by perspectives such as those introduced by windows, mirrors, and rectangular frames. A notable evolution in this direction occurred with the advent of film, which introduces the concept of multiple, successive perspectives within a single medium. Despite this progression, the end presentation still typically adheres to a familiar constraint: the rectangular screen, which continues to shape much of our engagement with visual media.

These foundational metaphors, established by pioneering artists like Brunelleschi and Alberti, have profoundly influenced not only artistic expressions but also the evolution of technology, particularly in the realm of computing. A prime example of this enduring impact is the concept of the computer "window," which has become a cornerstone of user interface design. This concept is part of a broader metaphor—the desktop—which facilitated the widespread adoption of computer technology and continues to define how we interact digitally.

Originally developed for the Xerox 8010 Star Information System, the desktop interface mimicked the layout of a physical office desk, complete with "furniture" and "equipment." Users interacted with this metaphor through common inputs like a mouse and keyboard, desktop icons—representing familiar office items like folders and trash bins.

This desktop metaphor, while rooted in an office-based schema, carries semiotic remnants of past technologies, such as the floppy disk icon still used to denote "saving." Although floppy disks became obsolete in the early 1990s, replaced by more modern storage solutions, the iconic symbol persists, illustrating the lasting influence of historical imagery even as the technologies themselves evolve.

Initially, most computer interfaces relied on command-line interactions. It was not until platforms like the Macintosh Apple Lisa adopted the desktop metaphor that its utility became widely recognized, eventually influencing Microsoft to name its operating system "Windows."

The success of the desktop metaphor in its early days owed much to its immediate relevance to office workers, for whom the analogy to a physical desktop made intuitive sense. These metaphors position the user as an observer looking into a contained workspace, typically from a singular perspective. While various technological innovations, such as interactive media and video games, have begun to challenge these established norms, they too often rely on similar frameworks of engagement, framed by viewports designed for a viewer's gaze.

Breaking the Frame: How Virtual Reality Redefines Artistic Engagement

Over the last century, museums and galleries have traditionally been the main venues where the general public could encounter art. Typically, these artworks were displayed on flat, rectangular surfaces, portraying realistic scenes from nature, human portraits, or still lifes. These visual representations, framed and mounted on walls, encouraged viewers to look through them as if through windows, often disregarding the surrounding space and the people within it. However, recent shifts in philosophical perspectives towards more human-centered views, coupled with advances in digital technology, have begun to challenge and expand these traditional frameworks.

Virtual Reality (VR) technology marks a dramatic shift in how art can be experienced, moving beyond the static window metaphor and the constraints of rectangular frames. VR immerses the viewer directly inside the artwork, transforming them from an external observer into an active participant within the artistic environment. This immersion is more than visual; it is a multisensory experience where the physical sensations of the viewer are integrated with visual, auditory, and other sensory inputs, creating a level of interaction that significantly deepens the engagement with the art.

Such immersive experiences allow for a unique, direct interaction with the digital environment, vastly different from viewing through a rectangle. The enveloping nature of VR, where the entire visual field is consumed by the artwork, offers a potent, novel sensory experience that is more intense and immersive.

VR creates a computer-mediated simulation that is three-dimensional, multisensory, and interactive, making participants feel as though they are truly inhabiting and interacting within a separate reality. This deep level of engagement challenges the traditional separation between artwork and viewer, potentially reshaping the very nature of artistic expression.

Artists Laurie Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang have effectively utilized VR to explore and exploit these new possibilities. In "Chalkroom" (2018), users navigate a dark, textured virtual environment that resembles grade school chalkboards, with walls covered in chalk drawings and messages. This gritty setting contrasts starkly with the clean, often futuristic aesthetics typical of many VR experiences. The space is punctuated by floating texts, sometimes as sentences or fragments, and individual letters drifting apart from their contexts. Stark white light from ominous cubes highlights the chaotic arrangement of angled walls, creating a labyrinthine space with hidden crevices and corners.

Luminous frames around doorways enhance the mysterious atmosphere, with beams of light illuminating the chalk imagery, reminiscent of starlight or deep-sea bioluminescence. An eerie digital soundtrack, interspersed with Laurie Anderson's voice narrating cryptic phrases, complements the visuals. Anderson describes "Chalkroom" as a "collection of stories" where users float freely, exploring and discovering at their own pace without a set path, effectively becoming the directors of their narratives.

As users move or fly through the space, hidden passages and areas unfold, inviting exploration and interaction with the environment. A light projected from the viewer’s perspective helps guide their path. The experience is deeply poetic and founded on open-ended narratives, allowing participants to infuse their personal stories and interpretations. Each user’s journey is unique, shaped by non-linear, self-driven exploration. The experience balances abstract and figurative elements, with words transforming into interactive nebulae and musical instruments appearing in vivid colors, playable with mallet-like hands.

Anderson and Huang's collaborative work showcases the unique capabilities of VR to blend visual, auditory, and interactive elements into a cohesive, engaging whole. It intentionally diverges from the polished, futuristic VR norms to offer a raw, immersive experience. This focus on a cohesive aesthetic experience over graphic fidelity is a testament to the power of VR to create compelling, integrative artistic expressions.

Conclusion

Anderson, discussing "Chalkroom," highlights a common issue where viewers often neglect to look around them due to conventional habits shaped by traditional art viewing—expectations formed by the longstanding dominance of frames, mirrors, and windows in Western art. "Chalkroom" eschews these constraints by allowing for varied experiences in each session. This variability, along with a strong emphasis on user interaction and choice, empowers viewers, giving them significant control over their experiences. 

By relinquishing control to the viewer, Anderson and Huang not only challenge historical conventions but also pioneer a form of artistic creation that merges the viewer with the artwork. Their approach to VR highlights the potential for profound engagement and interaction, fundamentally altering how art is experienced and understood, while breaking free from the rectangular confines that have long dictated artistic presentation.