Mass Migrations
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Inspired by intricate ornaments of Japanese fighting robots, Mass Migrations is a generative, interactive, initially VR experience, presented without a headset.
Set up for multiplayer interaction via HTC Vive controllers, it allows players to collaboratively create giant, glittering compositions, bringing Cosimo Galluzzi's digital painting to life.
Each session begins with a procedurally generated sky and visual seed that can be extruded, extended, and augmented with the controllers. Using their controllers, players are able to paint in 3D space, with a different brush shape and color appearing with each trigger press.
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Gestures are automatically mirrored, so a symmetrical image emerges, like the face of a Rorschach inkblot. Working side by side, players create enormous and complex mecha sculptures, strung together in rippling shapes that could be three-dimensional calligraphic flourishes, crystalline beads, or robotic vertebrae.
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The project started as a website allowing anyone to design their own creature with a mouse, trackpad, or inside WebVR, play down a custom animation of their design with music, or browse an infinite gallery of objects generated on the fly.
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Mass Migrations was originally presented at 3DWebFest in San Francisco, California, in June 2016, with it's art installation premiere at Next Art Night in Los Angeles, California, in September 2016.