Imagine, if you can, traveling across five continents and sighting each landscape from the air, while simultaneously being exposed to four seasons—all in less than four minutes. Making that impossible, possible, is the short film Chemin Vert, a collaboration of Giacomo Micheli, a creative coder and computer scientist from Rome, and A Ghost Train, an electronic music project by Portuguese musician Paulo Pinto. Based on Micheli’s childhood fantasy of riding a rocket from the ground at full speed, the absorbing, 3:15-long clip takes the viewers on a visually accelerated road trip via Google Street View that captures the panoramic frame of roads and their surroundings at about 1000 mph. But this film comes with yet another twist: A high-resolution version that immerses viewers into the film, allowing them to control their speed, and navigate the direction and explore the distinct landscapes across each continent, simply by using the mouse and the arrow keys. Though the stereographic projection compromises the experience of immersion and the graphics of the high-resolution video, it still allows the viewers to concentrate on the augmentation of the landscapes, and witness electronic music in landscape architecture form. Micheli anticipates installing this clip in a full dome projection where viewers could experience the virtual reality in domed architecture for the ultimate ‘Chemin Vert’ experience. • vimeo.com/37214968
Chemin Vert from Giacomo Miceli on Vimeo.
