HyperScape as an Ambience Co-creation Game: Participative Tools Coproduction

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1 Philippe WOLOSZYN, Gaëtan BOURDIN Université de Haute Bretagne Rennes 2, ESO-Lab. CNRS UMR 6590 Maison de la recherche en sciences sociales Place du Recteur Henri Le Moal, Rennes Cx.France LBA (Les Badauds Associés) 22 place Pierre Semard, Rezé, France HyperScape as an Ambience Co-creation Game: Participative Tools Coproduction Abstract The present paper presents a research-action program, developing an approach to the topic of landscapes in the district Malakoff. The organisation LBA scientific cooperation with ESO Lab. is here presented through recently developed co-production tools, within IRSTV program MEIGEville, in order to enable participative action through multi-media cooperative contents. As an hyper-structural ambient-dimensioned interaction system, Hyperscape constitutes a systemic way for territorial acknowledgement, as from the ambient territory knowledge integration, its participative function allows socio-psycho-physical data feedback streaming through its action game process. Résumé Le présent article présente une démarche de recherche-action, qui développe la thématique des paysages dans le quartier de Malakoff-Nantes. Ce projet de recherche, réponse à l appel d offre «MEIGEville» de l IRSTV baptisé HPU (Hyperpaysages pour le développement urbain participatif), porte sur la qualité d'usage et de co-gestion durable des espaces urbains par la capacité politique à faire de la ville un projet partagé, en s'appuyant sur la volonté des individus et des communautés à faire cause commune pour rendre cette gestion cohérente. Considéré comme un système d interaction à hyper-structure numérique dimensionné sur l ambiance des paysages, HPU constitue un système interactif de prise de connaissance notamment sonore du quartier, son caractère participatif permettant un retour des informations socio-psycho-physiques par le fonctionnement du jeu ambiantal des territoires.

2 1 Introduction With starting a reflexion about territorial development management within the framework of a study on urban renewal, GPV Grand Projet Ville, of the Malakoff downtown district in Nantes, we propose here a multidisciplinary approach relying on GIS as a tool to support analysis and assist in decision making. Association LBA Les Badaux Associés, initially collected testimonies regarding the way in which the territory and these transformations were perceived and understood by the inhabitants. Thus, a study about the concerns of local actors, researchers, political town planners, architects, sociologists and decision makers has associate the inhabitants in the process of knowledge and development of their territory (Woloszyn, Bourdin 2007). 2 From Ambients to Hyperscape : theoretical assumptions. Production of urban well-being, sustainable development and urban ambiences of the territories is relevant to a multi-dimensional and multidisciplinary approach of the concerned territory, implying both physical phenomenon modelling and environmental psychology inquiry methods. 2.1 Notion of ambients Psycho-physical models allow to describe and to manipulate environmental phenomena in space. Models of suggestive representation allow to place the individual perceiving in the centre of design process through the use of Virtual Reality tools. Human being, both identified as a modifier actor of the environment, and as an ambience perception subject, is also interacting with the environmental constituents. This leads us to re-formulate the concerned environmental parameters from an anthropocentric point of view, leading to the notion of ambients. Architectural and urban ambience production is related to the following three main interacting parameters (Figure 2): - the specified built form, which shape and material characteristics are able to generate an identified physical ambience condition, - the specific urban physical factors, which cover a large spectrum of environmental phenomenon such as wind, temperature, sun exposure, acoustical propagation or pollution dispersion, - the human being, both identified as an actor of the environment and as an ambience perceptor.

3 Figure 1: Ambience scheme The corresponding method analyses results of psycho-physical simulation through the descriptors linked to the spatial position of the observer, constituting a cartography with GIS use. 2.2 Ambient immersion Nevertheless, the use of virtual reality techniques for environmental visualisation can t afford a satisfying ambience representation without integrating the sensitive aspect of phenomenal perception. In that way, we can consider this aspect as a sensation vector from subject (the human being) to the ambience complex. Taking sensorial interaction through the physical simulation process into account leads us to an hybrid ambiences representation model, rooted to our researches in the both domains of spatial analysis and ambiences perception (Woloszyn, 2002). The final model we propose would enable the final user to re-feel the ambience parameters at each step of its walkthrough. Following those remarks, we can afford to compare these complex interactions with the known Burdea s virtual reality symbolisation (Burdea et al., 1993), based on the three major principles of Imagination, Immersion and Interaction, as illustrated figure 6: Figure 2: Virtual reality scheme (Burdea et al., 1993) The Immersion process (Slater et al. 1993) places human in an equivalent position of a classical urban pedestrian, with rigorous conditions for ambience restitution, involving precise geometrical subject placement in the 3-D town numerical mode and total

4 environmental control, linked to pertinent perceptive descriptors. The effect of this positioning is a simulation of physical phenomenons and spaces interaction very near from the reality (Gibson 1986). This realistic interaction principle is conditioning the user s freedom degree in the re-feel system. An immersion with a total interaction will allow a free moving and a dynamic parametering, permitting a total independence between each side of the triangle figure 2. This moving and sensing degree of freedom is important for space conditioning, and, consequently, for exploration acknowledgement. Imagination characterises interpretation of the parameters resulting from the virtual reality experimentation. Those descriptive parameters are related to the physical phenomenon with replacing them in the perceptual context. Several known methods can be applied to this aim, and the results shows a zoning ratio for each perceptual characterisation (Woloszyn 2005). 2.3 From Ambients to Hyperscape Game This approach doesn t discriminate the phenomena, but considers perception as a single object. The involved scalar physical phenomena are perceived with specific human sensors, which emphasizes sensorial disparities between environmental phenomena. Figure 3: Ambients instrumentation Considering perception as an action sensation vector from subject (human being) to the ambient complex, the corresponding psychophysical representation space suppose the construction of an homoeomorphism between scenarii timing, perceptual convolution and spatial instrumentation, cognitive transposition of one s population needs, human resource and geographical territory (Girardot, 2004), figures 3 & 4.

5 Figure 4: Hyperscape territorial scheme This is the reason why our game-informational research-action approach, Hyperscape, formulates ambients through event/phenomenon homeomorphic multimedia description, in order to interact with the territorial players. For this aim, Hyperscape system behaviour will allow coupling physical characterisation of a specified environment (i.e. soundscapes recordings of Malakoff territories) with the corresponding cognitive representations (through environmental psychological inquiry process), through an ambient scene virtual construction, presented following (Beat box, Ambience Generator). 3 Ambients-HyperScape immersive territorial information tools and contents Within HyperScape project, a few landscape re-appropriation experiences are under development. The project aims at contacting the various cultures existing in the relevant territory and the various generations of inhabitants. It is necessary, in order to be efficient, that the developed tools should be, in somehow, fun. Sound games for territory discovering includes a landscape beat box and a sound atmosphere generator. Those tools consist into a computer application that permits each inhabitant to reconstruct her/his perception of the Malakoff sound atmosphere. Therefore, a soundscape database has been recorded in situ, taking the main sound atmospheres of the neighbourhood into account. Figure 5 : Territorial soudscape map : captation points

6 3.1 Soundscape game for territory discovering: the Beatbox Figure 6 : Soundscape Beatbox The Beat-box consists into a computer application that permits the creation of music using sound loops which are recorded within the Malakoff neighbourhood soundscape. This tool should help the inhabitants to read in a new way their sound space through a recognition and an identification of the various sounds that are suitable for the beat box. Therefore, it constitutes a first step for soundscape sensibilisation, through a composition action, consisting into recognizing, identifying and describing an amount of sound of the neighbourhood, in order to transform them into a rhythmic proposition, individually or by groups. 3.2 Neighbourhood soundscape ambience generator Figure 7 : Soundscape ambience generator

7 The goal of the soundscape ambience generator is to allow each inhabitant to reconstruct her/his perception of the Malakoff sound atmosphere, which will be performed thanks to a sound database which can be mixed in order to recompose the global sound. This tool uses a different way to soundscape acknowledgment, with associating a photography with the sound, in order to realize a proper representation from a neighbourhood locality. It allows concretely to act on the neighbourhood landscapes to transform them, taking into account the different cognitive soundscape levels: background noise, ambient sounds and acoustic events. Moreover, this tool will allow scientists to collect qualitative data in order to understand the neighbourhood territory representations. 4 Conclusions This participatory approach involves the development of complex processes, touching transversely to both institutions and public and private performances, as well as individuals and cultural groups. A computer-adapted knowledge and culture sharing is then proposed, implying territorial politic structures and organisations, in order to develop their participation to the Malakoff urban development project, through knowledge, tools and goals sharing. Within those territorial rules integrations, intelligent territorial system HyperScape should be able to operate an ecologically valid transcription of the representations of a given territory as a collective construction in spatial terms as well as in social ones, aiming at the emergence of a common knowledge of the territory, towards the idea of a community of interest. 5 References Burdea G.; Coiffet Ph. (1998) La réalité virtuelle, Hermès (ed.), Paris. Gibson, J.J. (1986) The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Hillsdale, New Jersey. Girardot, J.J. (2004). 3è rencontres TIC & Territoire: quels développements? Lille : ISDM, n 16 Mai Article n Slater M., Usoh M., (1993) Representations systems, perceptual position and presence in immersive virtual environments, Presence, vol. 2, n 3, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press. Woloszyn P. (2002) From Fractal techniques to subjective quantification, Proc. Landscape and Architectural Modelling Symposium, Sousse, pp Woloszyn, P. (2005). An acoustic ambience study by immersive sound recognition, in: European conference Building with sounds, Paris. Woloszyn, P, Bourdin, G. (2007). Hyper Paysages Urbains (HPU) : un exemple de projet de recherche fédérateur, in : ESO Travaux et Documents de l'umr 6590 : Espaces Géographiques et sociétés, 2007, n 26 /octobre 2007.