[WIP Dec’24-Jan’26] : A project from the S+T+ARTS EC[H]O residency

challenge: Virtual Representations of Users / Spatial Computing
context: Virtual Reality, Scientific Visualisations, Collaboration, Avatar, Design
keywords: Biases & Challenges / scientific datasets / creative potential / realism and abstraction / nonverbal communication / perceptions.

VR TERROIR explores the virtual representations of users. in collaboration with the High Performance Computing Center in Stutgart (HLRS), who have a solution to explore scientific data in Virtual or Augmented Reality settings, allowing for remote and multiple users to be present.

It is an amazing tool, but there is a missing piece of the puzzle: how do we represent users there, in a non uncanny valley way, supporting non-verbal communication and with a right degree of realism and abstraction?

My proposal, in a nutshell is: building from the existing rich and cultural background of hyperlocal particularities found in popular culture, heritage, nature and space, physical and digital

We could call it the Avatar Terroir. same as in wine, where the terroir defines the complete natural environment in which a particular wine is produced, including factors such as the soil, topography, and climate.

Going from: a fake, generic, loud, bias, profiling, sterile and simplistic representations of self.
To: Using treats of the local culture, materials and place.

On the left, we place the current state of avatars, which are mainly an expression of Corporate Optimism, hyper functional, median, politically correct digital beings. From the cuteness of apple’s memojis, to Meta’s cartoon clones.

There are also places of extreme niche self expression, as virtual communities like VRCHAT, where a plethora creatures roam around polygons. Those avatars are wild and creative and fantastical, but are mainly rooted in digital culture, lacking a sense of place or context.

And here on the right, where I want to go, is the existing representations of beings and humans by popular culture. We do have a rich, tactile, physical heritage of creatures in europe.

From these down there from the basque country in northern spain, who dress with sheep wool and giant bells, to this guy from hungary. I do not aim to make a direct translation of all of this, but this is to illustrate the physicality I aim to achieve, also taking from identifiers of the localities, from the Kelp of Greece or the moss in some Alpine forests.

I also want to explore how thedigital context within a digital environment can drive the representation: since it is a scientific visualisation environment, how avatars should look behave or be affected if we are exploring nano microbial data or outer space simulations?

It turns out that this have a name :)

as a reference to the Critical Regionalism movement in Architecture, that reject placelessness of postmodernism and reclaims a contextualized practice, using local materials, knowledge, culture while using modern construction technologies.

For insance, the image in the background is a map of the Bioregions in europe, geographical areas with a similar biodiversity and common geographies. This could be a starting point, to break away from country boundaries that tend to be simplistic and profiling. For exampleinstance, I feel more mediterranean than spanish; in some aspects I have less in common with someone in the woods of Galicia, and more in common with someone from the coast of Lebanon.

Could the type of trees, the style of the cities or the food grown and eaten on a certain place drive the look and feel of avatars?

If this sounds political, is because it is,

digital spaces are colonized with globalized corporative capitalist extractive practices, Google Facebook Amazon and Apple dominate the language, the platforms and the narratives.

And I believe we need to build tools want to reclaim identity and agency.

And how to do all this?

With my skillset, Digital Craftsmanship, coming from an industrial design background, I’m familiar with the world of making things, and over the years I’ve been intentionally de-materializing my practice and designing for the digital space, because I don’t see a reason strong enough to add make more stuff to the world. So I have experience in 3D environments and digitization.

For this project I envision using 3D scanning, computer vision, generative textures, parametric design, computational photography, generative AI, motion capture.

As a hint, what I could see myself doing in this project is climbing a mountain deep in the carpats, 3D scanning a rock and feed it to a generative system that blends it with a scientific dataset and proposes avatars.

I can call this contextual placefullness

It turns out that this have a name :)

I’ll tap into the Critical Regionalism movement in Architecture, that reject placelessness of postmodernism and reclaims a contextualized practice, using local materials, knowledge, culture while using modern construction technologies.