View from Within

View from Within is an experiment in storytelling using an infinite canvas framework. The project was inspired by Scott McCloud’s vision for the future of webcomics as an infinite canvas, with the browser as a portal to an experience unbounded by the traditional borders of the printed page. The work is constructed from layers of hundreds of hand-drawn illustrations all viewed as if at one scale, and thus incapable of forming a coherent scaling scene without a zooming digital framework. When used continuously in this manner, the infinite canvas does not resemble the panel-based methods of sequential art: the space in-between, along, and outside the path are as or more essential than the linear chain of nodes. This iteration is built in Unity as a 2D canvas designed for viewing through a prototype augmented reality headset, the Seebright. The Seebright uses a set of mirrors and optics to overlay a stereographic view of a smartphone screen in front of the viewer. By eliminating the physical screen, we can explore the idea of the infinite canvas as a virtual construction, fully removed from the metaphor of page and portal. (Source: ELO 2014 Conference)