Phantom Terrain: Evoking Community Memory Through Gaussian Point Cloud VR and Immersive Landscape Reimagination

Abstract

This artistic research examines how immersive virtual reality experiences utilizing Gaussian point cloud technology can evoke and reconstruct community memory through reimagined landscapes. The creative project, Phantom Terrain: Landscapes Reimagined Through Gaussian Point Clouds, explores the intersection of digital capture technologies, artistic intervention, and collective remembrance. Gaussian point cloud technology offers unprecedented fidelity in capturing spatial information while providing malleable data structures for creative transformation. Distinct from traditional photogrammetry, Gaussian splatting preserves environmental authenticity while enabling fluid manipulation. This creates a unique aesthetic space where memory functions as a dynamic, participatory experience rather than a fixed record. Phantom Terrain captures real-world locations through high-density scanning, then subjects these datasets to artistic intervention. By distorting scales, blending temporal layers, and fragmenting spatial continuities, the project generates environments that feel simultaneously familiar and uncanny. These function as "memory palaces of the collective unconscious," where viewers project their personal experiences onto the shared cultural geography they encounter. The VR component transforms passive observation into embodied exploration. When participants enter these environments, they experience landscapes as inhabited spaces, triggering somatic memories through bodily engagement rather than purely visual recognition. Community memory operates on multiple registers: individually, landscapes surface personal histories through environmental recognition; collectively, virtual terrains encode cultural narratives embedded in landmark patterns, architectural remnants, and ecological transformations. The methodology targets locations of communal significance undergoing rapid transformation, employing "speculative archaeology" to construct landscapes hovering between the real and the imagined. Viewers become active agents of meaning-making, enacting embodied historiography through spatial navigation.

Keywords: Gaussian Splatting, Virtual Reality, Community Memory, Embodied Interaction, Digital Landscapes, Immersive Experience, Cultural Heritage

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1007171