Gravicam

Shanghai Astronomy Museum is a globally leading platform for astronomy science popularization exhibition. However, to encourage audience engagement, some exhibits at the museum still have room for improvement in four aspects: interaction, enjoyment, immersion and artistic expression. Professors from Shanghai Astronomy Museum hope more students to engage in astronomy-themed exhibit, using their creativity to explore cross-disciplinary integration of art, technology, and astronomy education. Our team comprising of three students from ShanghaiTech University is honored to have obtained a collaborative opportunity.

We designed Gravicam, a two-player interactive installation that aims to popularize the imaging principles of gravitational lensing by immersive experience design. The player performing “X126 celestial body” alters its angle to “a cluster of galaxies”, adjusts the mass of “a cluster of galaxies”, and then sends light rays to “Leith Observatory”. The other player performing “Observer 001 at Leith Observatory” synchronously captures artistic transformation of X126's face from Einstein Ring, Einstein Cross to Cosmic Ring. Gravicam has accomplished the objective of driving active participation in astronomy outreach by combining abstract installation with cross-media form, gamified mechanism, story-telling and digital visual art.