OP_ERA: Haptics for the 5th Dimension

OP_ERA: Haptics for the 5th Dimension (2006) — Work Overview (Website Text) OP_ERA: Haptics for the 5th Dimension is an installation conceived as an audio-haptic interface, designed to generate tactile and sonic stimuli in the interactor. The interface takes the form of a room (with variable dimensions) composed of: a tracking system; a 3D sound system (hardware and software developed to synthetically position sound data in three-dimensional space, informed by human auditory physiology); an algorithm that processes equations describing interactions between one-dimensional objects (such as particles or vibrating strings at microscopic scales); a set of visual and sonic devices that signal the forces and flows of a virtual particle field. Interaction: sensing without vision In OP_ERA: Haptics for the 5th Dimension, the interactor sees nothing. Spatial information is acquired exclusively through the sonic interface. Combined with tracking (a camera that identifies the user’s head position via artificial vision), the system serves a double function: it allows users to feel the form and scale of a virtual space-time field; it interprets the user’s relative position as a gravitational force. During interaction, the user’s body leaves “impressions” on the shape of space-time—indicating how it should curve—while the space-time field, in turn, provides directional cues on how the user should move. The work’s central aim is to investigate the geometry of higher dimensions and to develop interfaces for perceiving audio-haptic phenomena that cannot be visualized by human vision. OP_ERA: Haptics for the 5th Dimension was commissioned by Fundación Telefónica (Madrid, Spain) for the touring exhibition Emergentes (2007).