Flotsam Fluke is an all-ages VR world solely made of found objects from the Web, a dump full of free 3D models that collect dust online in databases. A playground with digital folklore aesthetics as a metaphor for the internet DIY (Do-It-Yourself) and DIWO (Do-It-With-Others) culture with its available digital tools. The project is based on the history of VR according to pioneer Jaron Lanier, who developed VR hard- and software (Eyephone) in the 1980’s, stating VR should rather be magical than to purely imitate reality. The idea of this project is to push this thought and relating it to everyday objects in 3d. Their arrangement and raining from the sky create a setting flickering between the familiar and the magical.
Team:
Christoph Scherbaum (Music)
Julian Hana (Unity Programming)
Derk Over (3D Design)
Winner Audience Award Cinekid 2018 Medialab.
Nominated for Dutch Creativity Award 2019.
Official description
In this VR installation you become an explorer in a futuristic multiverse exploring the Internet wasteland of our digital future like an archeologist. Wander around in nine digital decors and discover random objects, composed into poetic playgrounds and unexpected sceneries. You can pick up and assemble the objects, stack them and use them to make an artwork or totem pole. You can search for ‚easter eggs‘ (hidden jokes) and of course marvel at the beauty of digital absurdism at its finest. Flying orca’s in clear skies, a tyrannosaurus skeleton, ladybugs in XXXXL size and numerous digital inhabitants: from flamingos to deer, from wavy palm trees to beach balls.
Stefan Schäfer created a VR world full of lost and found objects from the Web, the dump full of free 3D models that collect dust online in databases. Beautiful models made by amateurs and professionals to use in the open source software community to create games, simulation animations, anything. However, if you merge them together into a big, absurdist, exciting whole it becomes a new and rich visual vocabulary altogether. Schafer created this into a landscape that works as a metaphor for the internet culture of DIY (Do-it-yourself) and even DIWO (Do-it-with-others) culture of this era with available digital tools.
Article in NRC news (in Dutch) https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2018/10/22/knutselen-met-digitaal-kosteloos-materiaal-op-cinekid-a2752263