Future Archives is an audiovisual generative virtual environment created by Nicolas Lefort and Haye Heerten. It emerges from the interaction between a customized modular synthesizer played by Lefort and a full real-time 3D rendering programmed by Heerten in Unity3D. The communication between both platforms is possible through a OSC (Open Sound Control) protocol. The first version of this project is a 15 minutes AV performance with two players, its on-going development aims at a fully interactive generative virtual reality.
In this virtual space, scenes take over subjectivity. Sounds and surroundings, that conventionally support the dramaturgic experience in a modest way, come to the forefront. In a lively modularization, blocks of space configure experience, and light and matter overcome the subject. Often recurring to a first-person single-player video game atmosphere, Future Archives empowers ambiance, recurrently melting the self through various maze-like passages. Cubes, the raw material for 3D modelling, drift across spectral sound and light. Narrative is explored dialogically, and cinematography is articulated by strangers, which allows an immersion into another kind of existence, reshaped by process and embodiment.
Four-dimensionality is explored in the architecture of Future Archives. Past, present and future interact with each other and coexist. Quantum and astrophysics imagination is rendered on stage. Objects are sound. Scales, dimensions and proportions argue about perception. The scene is the event and takes over concreteness, acting upon every layer of the space of performance. Future Archives disturbs a familiar sense of cinematics and finely reinvents VJ-ing within the realm of artistic research, challenging notions of reality and virtuality.