Synthetic Spaces: The Digital Exploration of Three Sites in Huddersfield
- Submitting institution
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The University of Huddersfield
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 54
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
-
-
- Location
- -
- Brief description of type
- Multi-component: Book chapter and Exhibitions
- Open access status
- -
- Month
- -
- Year
- 2019
- URL
-
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- Yes
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The Synthetic Spaces project used 3D laser scanning to create evocative composite digital images and computer animations of three sites in Huddersfield. The use of scanning technology was not to simply document the sites, as is usual, but to create complex narrative ‘portraits’ of their spatial, tectonic and experiential qualities using this innovative methodology. The animations were produced alongside a specially designed audio track to create an immersive ‘cognitive map’ of the town itself.
For the project three iconic sites in Huddersfield: Castle Hill, Queensgate Market and the Railway Station were selected and scanned. The scan data was manipulated to represent and explore these familiar spaces in unique ways through the production of digital animations, images and drawings. The 3D laser scanning process requires multiple scans to produce the precise digital data in the form of evocative ‘point-cloud’ models (where the space is literally represented by a series of digital points). These point clouds are then aligned, analysed and explored to create the digital images and animations of each site. The visual structures of the work, the points of view and animation paths, are derived from specific narrative concepts developed for each site with multiple images composited together to create the finished representations.
The original exhibition used the animations to create an immersive installation projected onto three walls in the Market Gallery, but subsequent exhibitions have shown the animations next to one another as a video triptych. The initial work created for the exhibition in the Market Gallery has subsequently been shown in New Zealand and in two separate exhibitions in China. The insights from the Synthetic Spaces research have been the subject of five public presentations and featured as a case study in a book chapter identifying the role of exhibitions in developing research practice.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -