'UROBOROS'

The changes and additions that were implemented in February 1998 feature the inclusion of spatialized sounds, added background STAR FIELDS, and a number of enhancements to all of the world files. Additional anchor links were provided to access both HTML pages (VISUAL ALCHEMY, CYBERTHEQUE) and newly designed VRML worlds (TERRANOV(A), and TERRANOV(S) worlds). While making the overall experience more 'dynamic' and interesting, these enhancements have pushed the 'limits' in terms of browser capabilities and download time. At this stage, and given the present bandwidth of the net, substantial additions (animations, movies and sounds) will be put off until STREAMING CAPABILITIES are in place for media files.

In most cases, these revised worlds come to you G-ZIPPED, which are then un-zipped by your VRML browser.

Make sure your Netscape or IE cache are large-enought (50 megs) to accomodate the large media file sizes; browser crashing is linked to insufficient memory and certain software incompatibilities.

Further technical-navigation information is contained in the VIEWING REQUIREMENTS section. If you are new to VRML visit the NAVIGATION TIPS page.

Test VRML 2.0 SNAKE animation is accessed via 'ALL-SEEING EYE' page.

This is also a stereoscopic 3D site, viewable with LCD shutters (with appropriate systems - e.g. SGI Indy with stereo outputs and Java control.)

The UROBOROS (or Ouroboros), the Serpent devouring its tail, is an ancient symbol of transformation and renewal. In Pre-Christian Alchemical tradition, the Uroboros integrates the dual aspects of matter/light and anti-matter/darkness, as a 'serpent of transformation'. In Medieval-Christian mysticism, the Uroboros is depicted as the 'serpent of temptation', the origin of sin, and a challenge to 'God's (patriarchal) sovereignty' over man/woman, and creation.

UROBOROS is an interactive multi-media VRML site, created as a flight of departure from religious and mystical orthodoxies, as a exploration of the dimensions, metaphors, orbits, and names of....STRANGE DREAMS OF CREATION.

'Virtual Space' is anything the artist wishes it to be: a VOID with 'something' and 'someone', linking to 'somewhere'. Virtual Reality space-time is four dimensional - time 'dilation' affects spatial depiction. This is actually a site about relativistic dream-space. As such, it is both 'bizarre' and fascinating, and full of visual puns and mytho-poetic references. The worlds and objects of UROBOROS occupy a space, of unknown proportions, surprising relationships, sizes which can be deceptively 'large' or 'small'. These are multi-media worlds containing movies and sounds, and surprising links to other worlds.

VR is rendered typically in Euclidean 'three-space', is ideally presented as stereoscopic 3D views, and it is viewer - interactive. It is not to be limited by unimaginative 'worlds' (and there are many examples) featuring toy-like animals, robotic 'avatars', four walls and furniture, implying a 'familiar place' for a mundane lifestyle, bored eyes looking for 'quick hits', or the military-gamer mentality.

I chose to seek the design elsewhere: the unconscious dream-scapes, free from gravity and predictable outcomes. Aboriginal 'DREAM-TIME' is likewise not guided by suburban hi-tech materialisms, and perhaps itself is analogous to virtual space.

UROBOROS, and its five - 'VIRTUAL FLESH', 'FIELD-SQUARE', 'TERRA FIRMA', 'STAIRS', and 'CLOUD' - worlds co-existing with each other, is a navigator's space, full of 'unstable' objects. While being open to future visiting worlds, this site 'waits' as worlds in progress, guaranteed to mutate in form and content.

Also guiding this project is 'the resonance of Surreal laughter' when the subject 'defies reason'. The Surrealists, as remembered in their works, were anarchists of the unconscious. If I choose objects, as elements (of the 'semantics' of my discourse), they would contain some of the many, possible explanations:

"The 'Angel's Tomb', viewpoint and objects, containing an (unconscious) joke and the paradox: an angel's flight - and its reflection - entombed; Breton's 'Severed Hand' in terra, the anchor to the plains of alchemy world; the altars of captive womankind; virtual flesh speaking statues; cloud world that becomes a poem world in space...

These are some of the elements of  'TERRA FIRMA'  , viewed separately (via this link), STAIRS WORLD, and the touch-sensor 'anchor' worlds - where you LITERALLY jump from once site to another - TERRANOV(A) WORLDS , or the cloud-trigger CONCRETE POEM WORLD . Be cautious, when entering TERRANOV(A) WORLD, as it is a complex, animated, and 'growing' world...

These worlds either hang like 'mobiles' in the anarchic web of the 'unconscious'...or feature spaces of 'unknown' proportions, and sometimes the surrealist laughter at the 'accidental meeting of....'

The in-lined 'parallel' world of 'FIELD-SQUARE', which depicts the chaotic edge of fractals in parallel with the holographic   (as texture and contour lines), suggests a theme echoed in the VISUAL ALCHEMY site: the paradoxical congruence of fractals and holographic (interferometric) contour lines. A congruence of form, and perhaps 'some-day' revealed content.