Josephine Anstey

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Josephine Anstey is currently an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo and has been since 2000. She teaches virtual reality production and interactive media analysis. From 1996 to 2000 she was a Research Assistant at the electronic visualization laboratory where she organized and participated in exhibitions and demonstrations at SIGGRAPH, Ars Electronica Festival, MediaArtech, and many more. She was a freelance writer and producer from 1986 from 1995. Josephine Anstey has a Master of Fine Arts in Electronic Visualization and in American Studies/Women Studies.

Anstey has received many awards such as Grand Prize for Let’s Play Prisoners at the Black Maria Thomas Edison Film and Video Festival in 1989. Let's Play Prisoners is an experimental video about a woman looking back on her childhood showing how a girl puts up with physical games of imprisonment, restraint and humiliation for a desire of approval. She has also won best dramatic video for The Bus Stops Here at the 15th annual Atlanta Film and Video Festival in 1991. This film is an experimental narrative video that goes through many different styles such as dream sequences, home movies, and even a documentary. She has also received many grants and other awards.

The Thing Growing was built for the CAVE system and is a fictional work in virtual reality where the main character is the protagonist who communicates with the computer characters. The Thing Growing is the work of a short story written by Anstey which goes into deep emotions in a relationship and a VR system was the best way to recreate this. She has also created other narratives such as The Trail The Trial, and Falling Over You.

Anstey worked on part of a project known as “Alive on the Grid” which was demonstrated for the first time at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria September 3, 2001. Alive on the Grid linked participants together from seven different sites over the world to interact with each other in a virtual world. The participants were hooked up in a cave environment to experience the virtual world. Streaming audio and motion capture were used to track people’s movements and so they can communicate with one another. Alive on the Grid had 1188 modeled objects, 363 recorded sounds, many textures, and other files, to come to a grand total of 2.5 gigabytes of data.

There are 10 distinct environments in Alive on the Grid but they all connect in an area called the Confluxus. The Confluxus was key because this was the meeting place where all of the groups would arrive and receive instructions and meet each other. Each person took on a computer representation of themselves within the VR system. In the environment “Home” they took on ghosts inside a broken down house. One of the more interesting environments was the “Infinite Studio” this is where the participants could make their own 3D artwork by using a color palette and several modeling and drawing tools. What was interesting about this is that every line they draw has a lifespan causing the picture to constantly change shape and form.

Josephine Anstey mostly worked on “PAAPAB” or “Pick an Avatar, Pick a Beat”: the participants pick a life-sized puppet whose movements mimic that of the user. They can all dance together and to the same beat in a VR space as aviators. The users are allowed to pick their puppet that they wish to represent themselves with. This section of Alive on the Grid also appeared as part of a fundraiser at Hallwalls in Buffalo, New York.

Josephine Anstey has left an impact on the VR world as well as the experimental film world. Her unique stories captivate people from children to adults and can inspire all. She goes in to deep emotions that everyone feels and presents them in a unique way that the audience didn’t see before and in several cases can interact with.