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SkyV SkyCeiling From The Sky Factory
The SkyV from The Sky Factory is a high-definition presentation of the sky - indoors. Terabytes of HD content are presented for your overhead enjoyment; this is pretty much exactly what sf authors like Stanislaw Lem were talking about.
SkyV is intended to bring the psychological benefits of beautiful sky exposure to venues that are unlikely to have real skies available. Take a look at this SkyV video:
(SkyV sky ceiling video from The Sky Factory)
SkyV is a ceiling-mounted system of HD LCD screens integrated into a patent-pending, faux skylight framework. The system includes multi-channel graphics processors and specialized synchronization software for display of its terabytes of proprietary HD content. SkyV simulates a real skylight, presenting hours of visual content captured from beneath beautiful skies and trees world-wide.
What is the philosophy behind this kind of display? SkyCeiling owner and designer Bill Witherspoon left these sf-related SkyCeiling comments in a previous article:
As the designers of SkyCeilings™, we have had a lot of time to observe their effects and, yes the "object" SkyCeiling has appeared before in SF literature and for real (think of the old cathedral ceilings) but for us the most interesting and unique thing has become the physiological response to properly made SkyCeilings. This, from my limited knowledge of SF, has very interesting parallels and raises some fundamental metaphysical questions that have also been the subject of SF inquiry.Consider, by way of prologue, that the Sky is our biggest and most universal experience of nature; that we (our nervous systems, consciousness, knowledge base, cultural habits etc.) have evolved under our sky.
The fact that a SkyCeiling can trigger the same psycho physiological response as the real thing is where things start to get interesting. Hasn't this been the subject of a tremendous amount of SF literature? I am thinking at the moment of Stephenson’s Metaverse or his ractives or the young lady's primer. But I know there is way more.
(Bill Witherspoon)
Stanislaw Lem's 1961 novel Return from the Stars described cavernous underground or interior spaces. But yet, the sky seemed to be visible.
"How do they work it so that the sky is visible at every level of the city?"She perked up.
"Very simple. Television - that is what they called it, long ago. On the ceilings are screens. They transmit what is above the Earth - the sky, the clouds..."
(Read more about Stanislaw Lem's sky ceilings)
SkyV should be available early in 2009 for purchase. See also the earlier article on the original SkyCeiling Big Indoor Sky. From SkyV at The Sky Factory via dvice.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 11/4/2008)
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