Child of Now is a massively co-authored story about the next century and the most ambitious portrait of a city’s people ever created. This Case Study video introduces a prototype of this project-in-development that combines emerging virtual holographic technology with performances from members of the public.
Discover more about Child of Now here: http://robertwalton.net/project/child-of-now/
The Child of Now prototype is an ambitious, mixed-reality experience by artist Robert Walton with First Nations author and activist Claire G. Coleman. It combines original storytelling, animation, immersive sound design, built environments, and virtual reality from an extraordinary team of leading Australian artists and technologists from University of Melbourne.
Melburnians were asked to create, share and nurture a vision of the future for an imagined child born in 2022.
In this prototype installation participants journeyed through an audio-visual experience and had their ‘hologram’ captured and replayed in virtual reality. This is the first stage of a longer-term project which will gather thousands of 3D portraits and voices, via volumetric body scanning and interactive augmented reality technologies.
Child of Now is a free, interactive experience for one person at a time lasting approximately 25 minutes. It was live at Arts Centre Melbourne in February 2022.
Video created by Phoria with music and soundscape by Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey.
The Child of Now Prototype was funded by the Faculty of Engineering and IT and the School of Computing and Information Systems at University of Melbourne, and was co-produced in collaboration with Arts Centre Melbourne.
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