photorealistic detail is a terrific way to fill that
void.
DAL: Very true, and the population genetics is
also developing in very interesting ways,
showing us which peoples were where and when.
What are you working on at present? Or work
that you have recently completed.UG: My latest commissions are from Dutch and
Belgian universities, for whom I am developing
some series of historical landscape
reconstructions. Working with archaeologists,
palaeo-botanists (ancient plant archaeologists),
geologists, that is always exciting. They provide
scientific data to work with, which helps me to
get the most realistic reconstructions, and then
it’s really great to make landscapes appear that
come close to their scientific ideas. But equally
interesting — though sometimes frustrating —
are the discussions that frequently arise about
details that haven’t been studied yet, or can’t be
explained, or illustrated just like that. It’s quite
regularly a two-way development, my work on
their data providing the scientists with ideas or
doubts that then need to be solved. And some
illustrated features are still conjecture of course,
and it has to be made clear when the
illustrations are interpretations, or an educated
guess. The last major commissions I made were
a 278 x 9 -foot wall, and a 40 x 13 -foot wall for
the Limburgs Museum, depicting respectively a
continuous landscape from Ice Age to Medievaltimes, and a very detailed medieval harbor town.
The latter being printed on special canvas and lit
from behind, it’s quite spectacular, and a very
satisfying job. One or two of that kind of
commissions are in some pipeline being
developed, but it’s always exciting what my next
job will be....DAL: Yes, big backlit pictures on lightboxes can
be especially impressive. Things like that will be
needed to compete with VR and other
technology. Museums will have to ‘up their
game’ on 2D presentations, I think. What do you
think of the advances in real-time rendering,
using videogame engines? Have you looked at
such things lately?
UG: That’s an exciting development as well, and
one of these days I might get into it. It’s the
future, but it would also be a complete new area
of study, and my main challenge until now is to
develop the most realistic reconstruction stills
possible. It all takes a vast amount of time, and
it’s just me out here... But talking of real-time; I
am involved in the development of some virtual
reality scenes for VR headsets, smartphones and
tablets; archaeological reconstructions that
depict the past on specific locations. They kind
of overlap the present when you point your
phone, or use the headset in a certain area. An
exciting field of work also.DAL: Fascinating. And lastly, this is our Myst
issue, so I should ask you if you have everyPictures: “Monorail 23” and “Maglev Line”.