To this end, Applied Interactives has developed a portable virtual reality system that the group has dubbed the VR Portal ©. The VR Portal © is a modular virtual reality installation system which includes an immersive screen, head-tracked 3D computer graphics and real-time interactivity. In 2002, the VR Portal was used to display the artwork of several Chicago based VR artists at the Museum of Contemporary Art (versionfest<02) in Chicago, at the Block Museum in Evanston, IL, and at the Murphy Center in Indianapolis, Indiana. The large screen of the Portal gives museum visitors a feeling of total immersion into the virtual worlds created by the artists. Its tracking system matches the visual display to the user's perspective so that when they move their head, the virtual world shifts accordingly to the new perspective.

Applied Interactives has a goal of breaking down barriers of what people consider art to be. Recognizing the challenge of convincing art institutions to take the leap into supporting virtual reality art forms, Applied Interactives has actively pursued the development of new software and hardware systems that allow these institutions to exhibit VR and interactive art as readily they do any conventional art media.

Members Include:
President
Geoffrey Allen Baum is an artist-programmer who is currently part of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Recent exhibits include Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria) and Version>02, Museum of Contemporary Art - Chicago. Baum finds his interests now converging in the common pursuits of the artist/scientist, the examination of the unknown and the beauty revealed in the structure and process of that search. He is currently heading a collaborative effort of like-minded artists that are attempting to reveal, through the medium of virtual reality, the power of myth to be descriptive of shared experience.

Secretary
Todd Margolis is an artist, educator and programmer. In 1997, he received his BFA in electronic visualization, and is currently an MFA candidate in the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Margolis frequently lectures on new media at UIC, Columbia College Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Margolis has shown work internationally, in such venues as Ars Electronica(Linz, Austria), Art Chicago, ICC(Tokyo, Japan), ISEA(Paris, France) and SIGGRAPH(LA and New Orleans). As an artist-in-residence at (art)n Laboratory, he collaborated with artists Ed Paschke, Karl Wirsum and Christopher Landreth, and recently participated in the creation of a permanent art installation at Chicago's Midway Airport. Margolis is currently developing a new virtual reality system (The Varrier(TM) Auto-Stereographic Display) with EVL Director, Dan Sandin. The results of this research were presented at the SPIE 2001 conference, "Photonics West." Margolis was also awarded the 2000 Christian and Oline Larsen Scholarship for Electronic Visualization and has been the recipient of a UIC Research Assistantship from 1998 through the present. He was the primary collaborator on a major project funded by the Canada Council For The Arts entitled "Where Are You From?"

Treasurer
Keith Miller is currently an instructor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a member of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL). He additionally collaborates with (art)n laboratory as the Project Director, developing 3d models and graphic content for vintage PHSColograms. His personal and collaborative works have been shown throughout the U.S. and internationally. Selected exhibits include Siggraph 2001 (Los Angeles), 'photoGENEsis: Opus 2' at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and 'Genomic Art: Portrait of the 21st Century' (Santa Cruz, CA). His most recent exhibitions include 'How Human' at the International Center of Photography in New York and 'Genomic Issues' at the City University of New York.

Vice President
Sabrina Raaf is a Chicago-based artist who works in both experimental sculptural media and photography. She is a producer of creative machines - machines that independently make art when cross-pollinated with human interaction. Her work was exhibited in 2002 in the Here and Now show at the Chicago Cultural Center, in Postflesh at California State University in Sacremento, CA, and Sense Data at the Painted Bride Center in Philadelphia, PA. She exhibited recently in the Sculpture in Chicago Now exhibition (2002) curated by Adam Brooks and Cory Postiglione, at the Fassbender Gallery in :::Interface: Exploring Possibilities:::, 2001, and at the Block Museum in the Immersive Art Symposium,2001. In 1999 she exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, DC) and at the Chicago Cultural Center. She is the recipient of a 2002, Creative Capitol Grant in Emerging Fields and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship (2001). She received an MFA in Art and Technology from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1999. Sabrina is currently a tenure-track professor in the Photography Department of Columbia College in Chicago.

Contributing Artist
Jerem Sloan is a film, video and sound artist. He has worked on a number of independent films, two of which were showcased and received awards at the Chicago Asian-American Film Festival in 1999. His personal work has been shown in a group show (Electraslip Knife, 2000), and he has helped develop a video and web package with CNN about Native American languages. He has been doing video documentation for Applied Interactives and is the first collaborating artist to join their team. He believes this partnership will help further his desire to combine art and technology in a common voice to the public.