Maps

What would a map of placeholder's virtual geography look like? How would it correspond to the limits imposed by the limits of the VR gear that participants wore on their real bodies? Could the Critters and Voiceholders be assembled in a world view that would chart narrative potential? In one preliminary sketch, the three virtual locations unite to form a uterine suggestion of the Goddess. Spirit Critters travel from one place to another. Spider hangs. Costumed shadow-people watch from the wings. Could such a map be constructed out of temporal events as well as spatial ones? The plot thickens. Travel from one location to another requires a participant to embody within a spirit Critter's "smart costume", changed how a person looked, sounded, and could move about. In initial sketches, participants not embodied as a Critter are shown as headless bodies; ultimately, those who have not affiliated with any Critter are bodiless, and cannot see the Portal, or the Voiceholders. The early arrangement of the three-part world in the image of the Goddess evolves to form a scheme with densely populated trails and Voiceholders narrating the journey.

Click on an in-line image to see a larger JPEG compressed version of it, or to see a full sized lossless TIFF version click on the .

	A sketch of a floor plan, with the two Magic Circles within which the participants would stand with their physical bodies restrained within the range of the trackers and the extent of the cables carrying video, sound, tracker, and Grippee data.
	Another proposed floor plan.
	An early allegorical map of the Three Worlds.
	Another map, from an intermediate stage of design.

More allegorical maps of the three worlds:

	Another intermediate design for the map.
	A high resolution scan of a similar map.

The final allegorical map, used in the Placeholder poster.