Theatrum Mundi

As Technical & Environment Artist and Composer.

In collaboration with artists Ahmet Rüstem Ekici & Hakan Sorar. Exhibited in In a Multiple-Perspective @ Yarat Centre, Baku, Azerbaijan

Unreal Engine + MIDI controller (3-Screen installation) / 2022

“Theatrum Mundi” (or The Great Theater of the World), a metaphorical concept that has been prominent in Western literature and thought from Ancient Greece to the present, as seen in theories such as Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, and was popular among certain writers during the Baroque Period. Based on the idea that the world is a stage and delving into the mechanisms of control over the actors, the “Theatrum Mundi” interactive experience is designed using a game engine across three screens. This experience transforms the viewer into an experiencer, constructing a stage that is no longer observed from a single angle or perspective. It questions the mechanisms of control in this world, exploring from any desired angle, encompassing the sounds, colors, weather conditions of the atmosphere, as well as the physical alterations, and pondering the extent of our permission as individuals.

In an area where traces of the city and body are displayed beyond scale, the stage is set before the viewer, who assumes the roles of director, set designer, lighting designer, and producer. The experiencer commands the view using over 20 control buttons and their variations located on the experiential panel. The virtual landscape before us is derived from GPS data taken from the Gobustan region of Azerbaijan. Emerging in this region where traces of body, society, and experience have been left from prehistoric times to the present, the work questions the environmental relationships of another weary body sprawled out, a figure that has appeared but is beyond our control, providing the viewer with an opportunity for multiple perspectives.

Technical Overview: An interactive level (environment & logic) design in Unreal Engine (from actual GPS data of the Gobustan Desert), that users interact with via a MIDI controller interface, to change the weather conditions (rain, snow, dust, cloud coverage, wind speed, etc.), time of the day, sea level and many camera related features, such as self rotation, look-at angles & distance, in real-time.