Sans Soleil
Sans Soleil
>> Rethinking Chris Marker through Spatial VR Essays
“Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.” — Walter Benjamin
“The images in the therapy program have no shadows. It’s a world that has a sun but no shadows… The light is even, as though there were no weather. It is a world of pure surface.” — Harun Farocki, Serious Games IV: A Sun with No Shadow
As Chris Marker observed in Sans Soleil (1983): “I will have spent my life trying to understand the function of remembering, which is not the opposite of forgetting, but rather its lining. We do not remember, we rewrite memory as much as we rewrite history.”
Inspired by this philosophy of “remembering as rewriting,” this seminar offers a practical introduction to worldmaking and cinematic production via LiDAR scanning and volumetric filming within the Unity Game Engine. We move beyond the traditional video frame to treat cinematic worldbuilding as a tool for “rewriting” the city, moving toward a practice of remembering through immersion where resolution is measured by orientation and navigation rather than mere visual sharpness.
By utilizing LiDAR, XR and volumetric filming, we delve into the concept of Spatial Montage— both as a cinematic technique, as well as a spatial practice and design method to edit and remix the “presence” of physical environments. In this process, cinematic production becomes a way to negotiate Benjamin’s “aura”—the unique presence of the site—within the digital realm.
We ask how new methodologies for crafting social digital worlds can remain grounded in the unique cultural and spatial characteristics of a city, opening fresh avenues for storytelling that weave together local nuances and lived experiences. Through LiDAR scanning, participants will record hidden or overlooked layers of the city that otherwise would not be seen, capturing places and stories that are increasingly affected by the extractive strategies of platform capitalism.
In the first part of the workshop, participants will engage in site visits throughout Innsbruck, capturing the city’s spaces and narratives as spatial and live point clouds using the medium of Virtual Reality as a cinematic, social, and multi-user platform. We will then learn to process this LiDAR scan and montage fragments spatially to create immersive narrative spaces accessible through short films and multi-user VR experiences. This practice redefines the act of archiving; by treating site-specific stories as “lived” point clouds, we engage in a form of investigative reportage that resists standard modes of documentation and archiving spaces.
Additional Information:
Hardware: Faro Laser Scanner.
Prerequisites: No previous technical knowledge is required.
Software: FARO Scene, CloudCompare, Unity3D.
Literature & Theory
Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility
Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project (Passagenwerk)
Chris Marker, Immemory (CD-ROM and Manual)
Catherine Russell, Archiveology: Walter Benjamin and Archival Film Practices
Chris Marker: The Archival Power of the Image
Films and Media Works
Sans Soleil (1983) – Chris Marker
La Jetée (1962) – Chris Marker
Level Five (1997) – Chris Marker
The Case of the Grinning Cat (2004) – Chris Marker
Ouvroir (2008) – Second Life Virtual World Project
Cenk Güzelis
