Visual artist Benjamin Britton took a lot of flack from the French culturati when he proposed creating a virtual-reality exhibition based on the prehistoric Lascaux caves of France. "They thought that I would put Mickey Mouse ears on the bison," recalls Britton.
But the exhibit, which simulates the experience of being in the cave which archeologists reckon was inhabited by humans during the Paleolithic age, drew throngs of visitors on its tour of the United States, France, Italy, England, and South Korea in 1995 and early 1996. Now, with a year off to reconceptualize, Britton is ready to reprise the show, and is relying on newer, more powerful Intergraph workstations to produce texture-map images of the cave.
The exhibition, Art from Virtual Realities, opens this May at the Dayton, Ohio, Visual Arts Center (12 May through 21 June), and will be accompanied by the work of two other leading visual artists: Jud Yalket, who has been working with film and video since the 1960s, and Charles Csuri, famed for his computer-generated prints and high-end computer-graphics animation. Later this year, Lascaux will show in Houston, and then tour the United States with other visual works of art.
"Right now, I am in the process of working to keep up-to-date with the latest, state-of-the-art platforms," Britton says. "For example, I am updating video clips to make use of fast video playback that is now possible with the new MMX technology. We're also using extremely high-resolution texture mapping." The new show will run on the Intergraph TDZ-Z25 workstation, which has some of the best texture-mapping memory - about 64 Mbytes - of any VR machine in the world.
Visitors to the exhibition will be confronted with a set of images, affixed to the walls of the room, representing the directions north, south, east, and west, as well as the spirits of nature, fish, deer, fire, and a tree. In the center of the space there is a meter-long table with one video monitor, showing the Lascaux cave. Additional monitors are positioned between the images on the walls. A visitor can step on the table, don VR goggles, and, using a space ball controller, navigate and move around the cave. "If you want to, you can try to push the limits of the technology, and run away from the cave, but you1ll find yourself flying into the sky," says Britton. "You can see the village near the cave in the year 3,000 AD. You can even fly into the sky and see the cosmos. There is a sky sign that lets you find your way back to the cave."
Inside the cave, visitors will see a photo-realistic VR depiction - using 64 Mbytes of texture memory - of the paintings, petroglyphs, and other works on the walls, including the requisite bison, sans Mickey Mouse ears. They will also see a rough stone farmhouse and dirt floor, which later transform into a banquet table and red carpet. The sequence is an attempt to show the viewer the timelessness of the art and the work associated with the cave. "You develop your own personal aesthetic and you try to create beauty, but it is impossible to tell the truth," says Britton, an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati. "No artist ever does. That's what the Veil of Isis is all about. The truth that can be told is not the eternal truth. This is not science. It is not history. It is art, and I'm trying to make beautiful art."
Britton, 39, started his career as a writer, but did not find success selling pamphlets of poetry. He joined the US Army - he wanted to visit Europe - and was trained for Army Intelligence. He learned to speak Czech fluently, and compares the "interrogation" process of his work then to visual art, for he tries to interrogate, or interact with the audience. Britton left the military, and later studied art in San Francisco.
Britton worked closely with the French Ministry of Culture when preparing the Lauscaux project. The real cave has been closed to tourists since the 1960s, for fear that the artwork there would be lost forever. Next, he plans to develop an Internet DVD project, to debut in 1999. "That cave has taken me on so many adventures that it is impossible to describe the joys and terrors of it all," Britton says.
