Seeking Expressions Of Interest
Proposal to The State Of California , USA, April 2006 "THE 1906 SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE AND BEYOND"
IMMERSIVE EARTHQUAKE EXPERIENCE
copyright David Vaughan Rogersdvr@allshookup.org
INTRODUCTION
An immersive earthquake experience incorporating an earthquake simulator and a High Definition authentic video simulation based around the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.The installation will use a twin video projection and two rear projection screens measuring 5.9m W x 3.3m H. An audience of up to 20 persons at any one time would be able to move through this environment. The distance between the two screens is 7.3 m.
A unique, cutting edge, financially viable and highly relevant world class tourist attraction incorporating state of the art visualisation technology for the city of San Francisco and surrounding areas. This immersive earthquake experience will enhance the public awareness of earthquakes and advocate for a safer earthquake aware society.
1:25 SCALE MODEL PHOTOGRAPHS
THE IMMERSIVE EARTHQUAKE EXPERIENCE DESCRIPTION
The video simulation would begin with an authentic and modelled walk by of key landmark buildings of pre San Francisco 1906. Based on actual accounts of the earthquake, the simulator would lift vertically. Everything is still for the next 30 seconds, apprehension builds, persons appear startled. The audio begins to roar, the simulator shakes violently from side to side horizontally. The S wave follows with vertical movement of the floor pieces. The simulator operates for approximately the next 2 1/2 minutes in both directions. The video simulation continues! Street frontage archictecture collaspes, timber beams and columns fracture, shop awnings and tin roofing falls down. Pandamonium! The earthquake subsides, the fires begin!THE STORY OF AN EYEWITNESS
By Jack London, Collier's special Correspondent(First published in Collier's, May 5, 1906)
THE earthquake shook down in San Francisco hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of walls and chimneys. But the conflagration that followed burned up hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of property There is no estimating within hundreds of millions the actual damage wrought. Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone. Nothing remains of it but memories and a fringe of dwelling-houses on its outskirts. Its industrial section is wiped out. Its business section is wiped out. Its social and residential section is wiped out. The factories and warehouses, the great stores and newspaper buildings, the hotels and the palaces of the nabobs, are all gone. Remains only the fringe of dwelling houses on the outskirts of what was once San Francisco.
Within an hour after the earthquake shock the smoke of San Francisco's burning was a lurid tower visible a hundred miles away. And for three days and nights this lurid tower swayed in the sky, reddening the sun, darkening the day, and filling the land with smoke.
On Wednesday morning at a quarter past five came the earthquake. A minute later the flames were leaping upward In a dozen different quarters south of Market Street, in the working-class ghetto, and in the factories, fires started. There was no opposing the flames. There was no organization, no communication. All the cunning adjustments of a twentieth century city had been smashed by the earthquake. The streets were humped into ridges and depressions, and piled with the debris of fallen walls. The steel rails were twisted into perpendicular and horizontal angles. The telephone and telegraph systems were disrupted. And the great water-mains had burst. All the shrewd contrivances and safeguards of man had been thrown out of gear by thirty seconds' twitching of the earth-crust.
INSTALLATION DETAILS
The installation will be a walk through environment with No seating. A handrail would be built into the room which is attached to the simulator and moves with it. The audio coming from the room would work as an attraction and draw people to it.The concept with this designed walk through environment would be a symbolic gesture towards the idea that San Francisco and California in general survived the disastrous events of 1906 and moved on and is what it is today.
The simulator measures 5.2m in length x 3.3m in width, standing at 1.5m in height. A unique aspect of the simulator is that its has both horizontal and vertical movement and offers an authentic earthquake experience by having both P Wave and S Wave operation.
VIDEO SYSTEM OVERVIEW AND CONSIDERATIONS
An important consideration for the installation is the distant between the two screens. The drawings included in this proposal indicate a distance of 7.3m between screens. The optimum distance between screens will be between 6.0m to 8.0m allowing for optimum focal field vision for audience viewing.EARTHQUAKE SIMULATOR REFERENCE MATERIAL
ADDITIONAL REFERENCE MATERIAL AND EXTERNAL WEB LINKS
David Vaughan Rogers Biographyhttp://allshookup.org/dvr/dvrbio.htm
Maya Visual Modelling Software
http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services/maya/index.shtml
USGS: 1906 San Francisco Quake
http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/info/1906/
Where Can I Learn More About The 1906 Earthquake
http://seismo.berkeley.edu/faq/1906_0.html
Wikipedia: 1906 San Francisco Earthquake
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1906_San_Francisco_earthquake/A>
dvr@allshookup.org