DomeFest 2004, the world’s only festival dedicated to the art and practice of the large-scale immersive digital medium called ‘fulldome,’ will be presented Saturday and Sunday, June 12-13, at the LodeStar Astronomy Center. DomeFest 2004 will include 18 works created by producers from Europe and across the United States. Productions run a wide gamut from astronomy shows, to fine art, to entertainment, to experimental works created by production studios, fulldome theaters, independent artists, and college students.
DomeFest 2004
The 45-minute show will be presented entirely in LodeStar’s ultra-high definition, large-scale immersive domed environment. DomeFest 2004 includes eight productions that were based in New Mexico, including three award winners. As with all submissions to the festival, a 12-member panel of experts juried these works. Six submissions in all won awards and each will receive the coveted ”Domie Award” for their contributions to fulldome.
“DomeFest is all about innovation, about pushing envelopes of storytelling, design, art, technology and techniques for the exciting and seamlessly unlimited medium we call ‘fulldome,’” said David Beining, DomeFest 2004 chair and LodeStar director.
“DomeFest 2004 represents the most innovative and compelling experiences yet created for the medium. No one has seen a show like this before. In fact, many of the submissions are making their world premiere at the festival,” he added.
The festival will also include an unparalleled demonstration of large-format immersive gaming. In association with LucasArts and Secret Level, DomeFest 2004 will feature the first time a StarWars game will be played on a planetarium screen. The game, StarFighter, was redesigned for fulldome display (and play) by Alejandro Diaz of Secret Level, Inc. a San Francisco interactive software developer who does work for LucasArts.
DomeFest Screenings
LodeStar will present four screenings of DomeFest on Saturday, June 12 with shows beginning at 6, 7:15, 8:30 and 9:45 p.m. Tickets are $12 and available at the door the day of the show. DomeFest 2004 continues on Sunday, June 13, with short talks and screening of some dome winners and a special screening of ”SonicVision: How Do You See Your Music?” a fulldome music show produced by the American Museum of Natural History’s Hayden Planetarium and MTV2. The animated music show was mixed by Moby and includes alternative rock sounds by bands such as U2, ColdPlay and AudioSlave. Shows are at 6 and 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 and are available at the door on Saturday at LodeStar.
“DomeFest 2004 is an absolute breakout year,” said Beining. “We’ve grown international in festival submissions, in the jury and in distribution. We’ve added great partners including LucasArts, Hayden Planetarium, many fulldome theaters and distributors and more. We’ll be presenting DomeFest in Valencia, Spain in July and then the show will be made available to other fulldome theaters around the country and world.
“DomeFest is intended to support the medium’s future by demonstrating its possibilities. New Mexico, especially the University of New Mexico, is a world-leader in fulldome production and experimentation so it’s natural that DomeFest is based here. Part of what we’re doing with the festival is augmenting our local talents’ production expertise and showing the world what New Mexicans are making.”
The DomeFest organizers solicited fulldome video productions from across the world which were then juried by organizers and producers from/for SIGGRAPH, Pixar, Dreamworks, IMAX, dome theater manufacturers and numerous digital dome theaters.
DomeFest Winners
“Optical Nervous System,” a piece created by the elumenati, a production studio based in Minneapolis, Minn., won the Domie Award for Best of Fest. Directed by David McConville, the piece (in homage to Jordan Belson & Henry Jacobs’ Vortex) is based on a 1965 lecture by philosopher Alan Watts about the nature of vision and perception.
Albuquerque-based artist Hue Walker took the Domie for Best Art Piece for her submission “Wings of Memory,” a personal production. Walker is an instrumental member of LodeStar productions and works through the Digital Pueblo Project at UNM’s Arts Technology Center. A piece submitted from Munich, Germany took the Domie for Innovation with its submission, “R+J,” a piece inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Evans & Sutherland Digital Theater Division in Salt Lake City won the Domie for Trailer of the Year for “The Stars of the Pharaohs.”
Constance Rush took the Domie for Best Student Production for her piece “Organix,” which she produced while a University of New Mexico computer science student. Colleen Gorman of Escapes the Enemy Productions and a University of New Mexico student won the Domie for “Indigenous Skies & Celestial Beings,” an experimental piece on astronomy, symmetry and Native American views.
“The Star Wars demo also represents important innovation for the medium—the increasing prevalence and possibilities of real-time rendering and interactive experiences for domed theaters,” Beining noted. StarFighter is a single-player game based on the StarWars prequels. A lucky audience member or two from each DomeFest 2004 screening will have the opportunity to grab the joystick and see how well they do as the world’s first fulldome gamers. DomeFest 2005 may very well include many more real-time and interactive pieces, Beining predicted.
The LodeStar Astronomy Center is a University of New Mexico project located at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History, 1801 Mountain Road N.W. DomeFest is a LodeStar production presented in association with the DigiFest Southwest Film Festival.
Major supporters include Sky-Skan, Inc., the University of New Mexico, Michael Stearns/The Guest House Studio, Spitz Inc., Si-Cor, the New Mexico Media Industries Strategic Plan, Kamazar Multimedia and FatCow.com. For more information visit: www.domefest.com
LodeStar Contacts: David Beining, (505) 841-5985; Karen Keese, (505) 841-5972
UNM Contact: Steve Carr, (505) 277-1821