1995


OPEN NEW ELECTRONIC CAFE ECI-TOKYO

IMMERSIVE, NETWORKED TELE-VIRTUAL REALITY ART ENVIRONMENT BETWEEN ECI-SANTA MONICA & ECI-AUSTIN. Two Cities, Two SGI ONYX-2 Reality Engines, and LIVE video input of performers at both sites -- Equals a fully shared, totally immersive, tele-VR art environment with real-world/real-person video input.

A historic networked immersive participatory televirtual performance and public experience linked The Electronic Cafe's in Santa Monica, California and was an inaugural event for the emerging ECI in Austin, Texas.

The theme of the evening focused on Virtual Reality as a medium for artists, and at the same time examine issues involved with televirtuality and networked virtual experiences. The VR worlds experienced were created by Professor Marcos Novak, the Director of the Advanced Design Research Program within the School of Architecture, at The University of Texas in Austin, and artist Clay Graham of Silicon Graphics in Santa Monica created using SGI's Performer authoring tools.

The two ONYX Reality Engines were linked using ISDN speeds over the internet, and PictuteTel and V-Tel ISDN video allowing the participants to simultaneously meet and interact within the art world - even though their physical bodies are separated by over 2,000 miles. Names were drawn from a hat to selected participants from the audiences in Santa Monica and Austin to individually don Eyegen-3 Head Mounted Displays from Virtual Research, coupled to Polhemus Fastrack position and orientation sensors. The displays and sensored were connected to Silicon Graphics ONYX-2 Supercomputers with Reality Engine Graphics Subsystems, and SGI SIRIUS Video Boards. The SIRIUS video boards allowed real time video from each location to be textured onto the surface of selected objects in the Virtual Reality worlds.

A live videoteleconference via ISDN and PictureTel lead off each evening, featuring Dr. Novak in Austin and Clay Graham in Santa Monica. Dr. Novak was joined by Nate Pagel, the Director of the Electronic Cafe in Austin, and who additionally is the founder of the Austin Virtual Reality Alliance. Clay Graham was joined by Dave Blackburn, co-producer of the monthly VE-SIG events at ECI-Santa Monica and Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, Co-founders of Electronic Cafe International. Added Sponsors for this ECI Santa Monica & Austin event were: Silicon Graphics, Polhemus, and Virtual Research.

OPENING NEW ECI @ ARTHOUSE, DUBLIN, IRELAND

NEW ECI Affillate IN NYC @ THE KNITTING FACTORY

MCI GLOBAL '95, 10 CITY, 3-DAY, 77 PERFORMANCES MCI In Collaboration With Electronic Cafe International Presented Global 95, in association with, British Telcom. Picturetel, Dolby Fax , Promptus and Ocean Of Know.

Global '95 is a worldwide ISDN Exposition sponsored by more than 100 telecommunications carriers and equipment providers around the globe. MCI was a full sponsor of this event and took a leadership position on the Global '95 Steering Committee. In addition to its sponsorship and participation in G'95, MCI collaborated with ECI to presented interactive multicultural broadcasts. The ECI Network showcased various types of collaborative, live entertainment between two or more entertainers performing together via MCI Global ISDN from different countries around the world . Sites included, (United states:) ECI Santa Monica and ECI affiliate the Knitting Factory, NYC; (United Kingdom) The TMA trade show in Brighton Manchester hosting G'95; (France) ECI-Paris; (Canada) ECI-Toronto; (Israel) ECI-Jerusalem; (Brazil ) ECI-Rio de Janeiro; (Denmark) ECI-Copenhagen; (Ireland) ECI-Dublin; (Japan) ECI-Tokyo.

For the MCI Global '95 program the collaborations included a "Musical Introduction" of each location featuring live performances from each site, Multicultural musical transmission enters a new generation via "Global Musical Conversation." Performers collaborate by moving music around the globe with each adding a new cultural flavor as the conversations develops. ECI demonstrated "Composite Image Space" Transmissions as a creative telecollaborative social space. The three day interactive musical performance, The "Global Musical Conversation" (GMC), included well known jazz and improvisers from each of the 10 international sites. The cross musical transmissions enter a new genre of Tele-Jazz. The GMC programs included musicians from Rio de Janeiro; ethnic acoustic and electronic selections from Jerusalem ; traditional Japanese flute and drumming from Tokyo; contemporary Danish music; acoustic vocals from Ireland; classic jazz saxophone from New York; and jazz vocals with a French twist from Paris and keyboards from Santa Monica.

Video connections ran at 384 ISDN over PictureTel and compatible H.320 technology with additional Dolby Fax digital audio.

INTERACTIVE FORUM AT NEW MEDIA EXPO 95 In Collaboration with THE WRITERS' GUILD OF AMERICA. International Forum produced BY ECI SM AND ECI PARIS connecting LA- Paris for forum dealing with cultural, creative legal, and technical issues in the New Media

TRANSATLANTIC KONCERT TeleKoncert between Copenhagen & ECI Santa Monica (384Kb video, 256Kb audio. The big one: A high level teleconcert. 384k video and 256k audio. The invited, guests include, the very top of the Danish telecom, other sponsors, press and electronic media and so on. Approx. 150-200 people watching. The artists in Denark, famous trio D�rge which consist of Pierre D�rge (gui), Irene Becker (keyb.) and Morten Carlsen (sax). In Santa Monica. Percussionists Adam Rudolf and Hammet Drake. In all breaks midipiano played by Bryan Pezone in ECI Santa Monica

3 CITY TELECONCERT Electronic Cafe International, Santa Monica and ECI @ The Kitchen in NYC meet Brian Haggerty of Cyber X Cafe in Minneapolis. Jenkins/Ewart/Smith performance. connections. Video: New York and Santa Monica connect via PictureTel. Cyber X using CUSeeMe. The CUSeeMe connection was between Santa Monica and Minneapolis, because both have faster connections than NY. Santa Monica transmited the CUSeeMe video via the PictureTel to New York creating a multimedia real time connetion for 3 city music jam.

ECI @ Interaccess, TORONTO AND SANTA MONICA WELCOME TO THE ELECTRIC SKIN An Interactive Robotic Artwork By : Doug Back, Johanna Householder Simone Jones Francis LeBouthillier, Jeff Mann Steev Morgan Catherine Orfald Nancy Paterson, Kathleen Richardson Victoria Scott, Graham Smith Karen Tzventarny Norman White 'The Electric Skin' is an new kind of interactive artwork which combines Virtual Reality and remotely controlled robotics. Viewers can control 2 small robots from around the world using videoconferencing and roam through a maze of miniature artworks created by 13 artists. Viewers see through the video eye of the robot and can bump into other robots which activates a face to face conferencing feature with the 2 drivers.

Closing night featured events include : A special appearance by Wilma the telepresence robot... Robots robots and more robots. Slam poetry and interactive performance.

ECI'S 7TH ANNUAL AROUND THE WORLD NEW YEAR'S EVE 'TELEBRATION' Including connections to ECI Paris, ECI affiliate, The Knitting Factory in NYC and new ECI's in Dublin,

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