Multi-sensory Simulators - Text 3
These experiences are generally documentary, but some have a fictional dimension. The belly dancer episode, for example, begins with a scene shot with an objective camera which shows a boss and his secretary in an office. Suddenly the boss is transformed into a sultan and the secretary into an almeh; here the camera becomes subjective, and the film more purely attractional.
The films were shot with two 35 mm movie cameras with a wide-angle lens. The cameras were synchronized and carried in a harness. The two films were then printed on the same film stock (two images per frame) and the sound was laid down on two magnetic tracks. Each film was inserted into a different magazine, which when selected was placed in front of the light and against a magnetic head. The eyepieces were made out of special glass, concave on one side and semi-spherical on the other, which diffracts the light. They were fitted to the eye so that the image covered the entire visual field and in particular the viewer’s peripheral vision, to 180 degrees. The sound, recorded binaurally, was played on two small circular speakers placed next to the viewer’s ears.
Vibrations and jolts were generated by a small motor placed under the seat. Breeze was produced by a fan sending air towards the viewer’s face and legs through a pipe and several ventilation openings. Scents were released in the same ventilation system from a series of containers, each of which contained a synthetic scent and whose lid was raised at the appropriate moment by an electromagnet (the system could hold up to ten different scents, but each film used only one or two).
The synchronized various elements of the device, the perception of the senses – images, sounds, vibrations, scents – and of the entire experience were conveyed by the film stock, which in addition to the two images and the two sound tracks held two other magnetic tracks sending electric signals, in the one case to produce the seat’s vibrations (and to determine their duration and intensity) and in the other case to select and release the scents.
