Float : an investigation into the new media history of panorama in Australia

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.NO FULL TEXT AVAILABLE. Access is restricted indefinitely. The hardcopy may be available for consultation at the UTS Library.NO FULL TEXT AVAILABLE. Access is restricted indefinitely. ----- This document is the written component that accompanies the creative artwork Float: an on line panoramic play of sustainability, virtual: space and real place. Together, they compose the assessment material for my Masters of Creative Arts (MCA) by Research. This MCA has investigated' Australian land art and panoramic representation of place in the era of digital communication technology. My research has focused on how the technique and technology of the moving 360° panorama has evolved with new media to document places and engage audiences with virtual reality of inhabited spaces. The methodology used to investigate this history of panorama was to identify the technological developments used to capture and present the wide view image over time, and interpret how the evolution of media technologies have changed the panoramic form of representation using examples of such visualisations. The Float creative component reveals sustainability issues of places in the Australian landscape with moving and suspended panoramic vision. An interactive artwork has been developed from an investigation into man-made interventions to river flows so as to illustrate relationships between community and country forged by water management. All-encompassing 360° images interpret the balancing act struck between man-made structures and native bush found at the surface of intercepted waterways in South-Eastern Australia. This artwork was informed by research into Australian land artists investigating place and sustainability issues with panoramic artworks. The online element was also influenced by discursive/rhetorical analyses of realestate website design and content to comment on value dimensions of real places online. The following written component of the MCA discusses the panorama as a prevailing form and focuses on the new media history of moving and interactive 360° imagery. This research identifies the techniques and methods used to capture and present a virtual reality experience of place using panoramas. My research also discusses contemporary artists who use the panorama within traditional, digital and emergent dynamic mediums in Australia. This discussion questions how and with what effect artists in the digital era of virtuality have further evolved the tradition of panorama to portray real places