Background: Antarctic Dataspheres is an immersive interactive installation created from videos and ambisonics audio recordings taken on the last voyage of the RSV Aurora Australis to Antarctica. It was presented at Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart as part of the Australian Antarctic Festival (AAF). Antarctic Dataspheres covered the walls and ceiling of the gallery to create an immersive space along the lines of a CAVE or full dome experience. It aimed to create an encompassing experiential space reminiscent of the expansive vistas that were the subject of the installation. Four scenes depicting travel through Sea Ice, Fast Ice, Glacier and Southern Ocean accompanied by composed spatial audio recordings looped throughout the day.

Contribution: The video was sampled as volumetric point clouds enabling physical interaction with the resultant volumetric video. An Azure Kinect depth sensor tracked movement of the visitors, activating a different interaction style for each scene. The interactions sought to convey a sense of personal and collective journey through the Antarctic environments. The artwork investigated new opportunities afforded through the treatment of video as 3D points in a game engine rather than 2D pixels. Movement based interaction methods included illumination (Fog), mixing points (Portal), defining territories (Stooging) and turbulence (Storm).