Pigments Of Imagination (2023)

Pigments of Imagination (2023) - Timothy Gmeiner & Eito Murakami is an interactive virtual reality experience that frames the creative process as a narrative relating the synesthetic inner-workings of one’s unique imagination to the universe around us. It is an observation on the beauty, fear, adventure, sadness and loneliness of self-discovery and the artist’s ultimate recognition of process as goal, as told through the story of a small child’s journey to the moon. This installation is designed to re-imagine the popular music video in a virtual space as a dynamic, emotionally engaging experience by exploring distinctive relationships between spatialization, audiovisual reactivity and interactivity, which allow for a narrative immersion that maintains a structured arc and conclusion but unique experience with each use.

This piece was presented at ACM VRST 2023 and received the best demo award (as selected by attendees).

Acknowledgements: We would like to thank Gabriel Zalles-Ballivian for his foundational instruction and development on the first iteration of Pigments of Imagination WebXR and subsequent documentation. We would also like to thank Shahrokh Yadegari and Sonic Arts R&D at UC-San Diego for providing guidance, insight and resources toward development. We would also like to thank UC-San Diego Professors King Britt and Steph Richards as well as Zachary Konick and Nick Tolford for their musical contributions to this piece. We would lastly like to thank Keenan Parry and Aamir Asadi for their visual contributions.