Its narrative tells the story of a man who has vanished, and its style yields unconventional character development, placing the spectator as a character in the story while weaving through first-person sequences and omniscient third-person sequences. Its physical layout and subtle use of interaction force its spectator into a role of mysterious significance, navigating a space that appears interactive, yet offers surprisingly little alteration to its narrative.

As the exhibition nears its conclusion, the fate of the missing man becomes apparent, and the spectator is suspected of being at fault in the disappearance. With little means by which to exonerate him or herself, the spectator must quietly witness the murky end to Falling From the Earth’s story.

Pfarr_63_Maxuino

The modified Maxuino help file used to interface with the Arduino-connected PIR motion sensor.

Pfarr_62_Max_satellite

A Max/MSP satellite, using a networked bang to trigger a single video sequence.

Pfarr_61_Max_brains

The brains of the Max/MSP networking patch, triggering the eight audio tracks and the satellite patches that run the independent video channels.

Pfarr_59_Audition

The workspace for the eight channels of surround sound audio in Adobe Audition.

Pfarr_60_Final_Cut

The video editing workspace in Final Cut Pro.

Pfarr_4_motion_sensor

The PIR motion sensor hooked to the Arduino Uno during the testing phase.

Pfarr_2_hardware_setup

The guts of the operation: the hardware setup. The project used five Mac Minis to run the audio and video sequences.

Pfarr_43

Giving the audience a glimpse into the brains of the exhibition. The black lump contains the motion sensor.

Pfarr_41

Viewing the exhibition during the thesis defense.

Pfarr_42

Viewing the exhibition during the thesis defense.

Pfarr_47

Viewing the exhibition during the thesis defense.

Pfarr_47

Viewing the exhibition during the thesis defense.

Pfarr_40

Welcoming the audience to my exhibition space during the thesis defense.

Pfarr_33

The thesis defense, highlighting the history of 20th-century immersive video exhibitions.

Pfarr_14

The thesis defense, discussing my influences for the project.

Pfarr_13

The entrance to the exhibition space.

Pfarr_12

The entrance to the exhibition space

Pfarr_11

The cross in the center of the exhibition space.

Thesis 8

The exhibition space.

Falling From the Earth offers numerous implications for the relationship between immersive environments and the uncanny, exhibiting that immersion largely exacerbates feelings of the uncanny. The exhibition also demonstrates the importance of placing spectators in unfamiliar roles and challenging their expectations.

View the video documentation here:

View the video content here:

Colin Curtis takes to batting practice at Safeco Field July 8, 2010. Photo by Greg Farrar.

In 2010, I was able to cover the story of a local ballplayer who made the big leagues. This story, which ran in The Issaquah Press June 14, 2010, took second place for Best Sports Personality Profile from the Washington Newspaper Publisher’s Association.

Fifteen years ago, had Colin Curtis known he would someday become a major league outfielder, he would have said, “perfect, my plan is going to work.” At least that is what Curtis, now 25, said with a laugh when asked what his reaction would have been.

“It’s what I dreamed of doing when I was 10,” he said. The 2003 Issaquah High School graduate was called up from the Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees to the New York Yankees on June 21, and he has become a pinch hitter and an occasional starter for the major league team.

“It’s an amazing feeling,” he said about reaching the majors, adding that playing for so many years and finally reaching his goal of making it to the major leagues gives him a great sense of accomplishment.

“To finally reach it really means a lot,” he said.

Curtis, who underwent surgery for testicular cancer during his freshman year of high school, played three years of college baseball at Arizona State University before being drafted by the New York Yankees in the fourth round of the 2006 draft. He then began working his way up the minor league ladder.

He got the call from the New York Yankees June 20, and he was on a plane to Arizona the next morning. He made his first major league appearance as a pinch hitter against the Arizona Diamondbacks just hours after landing.

“It was kind of a rush, packing stuff, then getting on a plane the next morning and then playing in a game that night,” Curtis said. “I just packed my bags and went.”

Although he failed to get a hit in his first at bat, he returned the following night as a pinch hitter in the bottom of the eighth inning and smashed a two-run double for his first major league hit, helping the Yankees win 9-3 over the Diamondbacks.

After his hit, the umpire halted play, gave Curtis the ball and told him he only had 2,999 more to go, referring to the 3,000-hit milestone baseball players try to achieve.

Curtis is now staying in Manhattan, and he has played in games against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Seattle Mariners, Toronto Blue Jays and Oakland Athletics.

His first game against the Mariners was at Yankee Stadium, but the Yankees came to Seattle for a series from July 8-11.

Curtis started July 9 and 10 in right field, and went 1-4 July 9 with a double and 0-4 July 10. In the 12 games he has appeared in, he has racked up 25 at bats, one run, 4 RBIs and five hits. He is hitting .200, and three of his five hits were doubles.

“Coming back here and playing in Seattle where I grew up is an absolute thrill,” Curtis said before the game July 8. He had flown in with the team from Oakland the night before, and he took teammate Kevin Russo — who was also recently called up from Scranton/Wilkes-Barre — out to lunch that day and showed him around the city, since Russo had never been to Seattle.

Curtis’ friends and family were on hand for the entire series. However, his father Jed, mother Janet and older brother Conor may be his three biggest fans, as they traveled to Arizona on short notice to watch the entire series. They then followed the team to Los Angeles.

“It was exciting for us,” Jed Curtis said. “It’s been a long time in coming, from Little League to high school to Arizona State and the minors.”

He said seeing his son on the field reminded him of Little League games from long ago.

“It brought back a lot of memories from those games at Tibbetts Field,” Jed Curtis said.

Issaquah High baseball coach Rob Reese also flew to Los Angeles to see Colin Curtis play. Reese, who coaches the Lakeside Recovery Senior American Legion team in the summer, was in San Diego for a tournament when Curtis and the Yankees came to L.A. Curtis is the first Issaquah player for Reese to reach the majors.

“It’s incredible when one of your old players plays in the big leagues,” Reese said, adding he watched on TV as Curtis got his first hit, and got to meet and congratulate him after the game in L.A.

Issaquah High assistant coach Steve Sanelli, who coached Curtis in high school and on a Little League all-star team, said he has been watching and listening to Curtis’ games on TV and the radio as if Curtis were his own son.

“It’s a thrill for me just watching him play,” he said. “It’s a huge thrill just knowing him. Hopefully, his success will continue and he’ll keep playing.”

He said Curtis never changed his style from Little League onward — he chases down balls, swings his bat and smiles the same way he did when he was young.

At a recent tournament, Sanelli spoke with baseball scouts who said they thought Curtis would have been called up to the majors two years ago had he not been with an organization as dominating as the Yankees.

“It’s hard to break in when they have multimillion-dollar guys in the outfield,” Sanelli said.

Curtis said playing for the Yankees has been quite a ride, and he has enjoyed traveling with the team.

“It’s exciting to see all the different cities and playing in different environments.”

He said one of the toughest pitchers he has faced so far was Seattle’s Felix Hernandez, who he faced off against in New York on June 30. However, he said all pitchers in the league present a significant challenge.

“Everyone you face is going to have good stuff out there,” Curtis said. “That’s why they’re in the big leagues.”

He comes back to Issaquah during the holidays, and he stayed in town for the all-star break, July 12-15.

He said his favorite baseball players of all time are Ken Griffey Jr., Kirby Puckett and Roger Maris.

Could Curtis ever play for the Seattle Mariners? Who knows. However, he said he’s happy where he is.

“I’m in such a great situation right now,” he said. “I love playing for the Yankees, and it’s such a great organization.”

To all of the young players, he says to always keep playing and chasing their dreams.

“I’d say never give up on your goals,” Curtis said. “Even when you’re in a rough patch, just keep playing hard. If you love it, eventually things will work out. Just keep going after it.”

Welcome to Issaquah!

Dowtown Issaquah during a blackout. Photo by Greg Farrar.

On your left, you’ll see the Triple XXX Rootbeer Drive-In!

On your right, you’ll find the Village Theatre!

Oh look, over there is the beloved Issaquah Salmon Hatchery!

A typical tour of town might go something like that, detailing the proud past of a historic city.

What about the strange, seedy and sinister history of this former frontier town? What about the ominous undertones? Not many tours take you down the alleys of the city or expose what had been its underbelly.

But this one does, and it will tell you about some of the most notable incidents that occurred here in the decades after white settlers arrived in the 1850s. Murders. Bombings. Fires. Explosions. Abductions. Plus, plenty of other mayhem.

Get in your DeLorean and prepare to tickle your morbid curiosity, because we’re headed straight to the past and into the dark side of Issaquah.

Lethal harvest at Wold farm

Event: Townsfolk attack Chinese workers

The first stop on our tour takes us to 1885, prior to Issaquah’s incorporation.

Local brothers Ingebright and Lars Wold operated a hops farm in the area at the time, employing American Indians as their workers until finding out Chinese men would do the job for less.

Unfortunately, the brothers would soon find out that cutting corners wouldn’t pay off.

On Sept. 5, 37 Chinese workers arrived in town to start work on the Wold farm, and they traveled straight to the farm, pitching their tents in the orchard. This upset several white and American Indian men, and they gathered their weapons and paid a visit to the farm that night, seeking

to drive the new workers out of town. White workers at the farm persuaded the crowd to take up the matter with the Wold brothers, who were able to turn the crowd away for the evening.

However, the crowd said it would be back to drive the Chinese out if they did not leave.

Two days later, 30 more Chinese workers arrived in the Squak Valley en route to the Wold farm, but locals met the group at George W. Tibbetts’ store and intimidated them to the point of leaving the area.

Tibbetts was a Civil War veteran and prominent merchant, as well as the justice of the peace in the area.

That night, a group of white locals and several American Indians — who may have been intimidated into joining the group — gathered at Tibbetts’ store, armed with Winchester rifles and Colt revolvers, determined to drive the Chinese workers out of town. One member of the group later testified that Tibbetts had supplied the group with ammunition.

However, members of the group said they did not intend to hurt the Chinese if they didn’t need to, and they had armed themselves if they needed to defend themselves against armed white workers guarding the camp, according to the governor of the territory’s 1886 report to the federal secretary of the interior.

The group — which may have consisted of as few as seven or as many as 20 people — arrived just before 10 p.m. at the camp, where all of the Chinese workers, except for a lookout, were asleep.

The group of locals said a shot had been fired at them, so they opened fire, spraying 20 to 30 bullets at the sleeping Chinese men, instantly waking them and causing them to flee in terror.

Six workers were shot in the attack, three of them fatally. Two of the fatally wounded died within 20 minutes, and the third died the next morning.

Was the group fired upon? No one knows.

This much is known: Two of the fatally wounded workers were shot while lying in their tents, each struck by at least two bullets from above at short range, according to the governor’s report. The third man killed was shot while running away.

One tent had also caught fire, which may have been the result of the group pulling a tent down while a candle burned inside it.

Seven men stood trial for murder, but were acquitted based on an alleged self-defense.

After being acquitted, they stood trial for rioting, and each was found guilty and fined $500. The case was appealed to the Territorial Supreme Court, and the fines were ultimately thrown out because the convicting jury included women, who were not allowed to vote.

Mob leaves man out to dry

Event: Squabble leads to downtown lynching

The second stop on our tour takes us near the Julius Boehm Pool on Clark Street.

Long before the site played host to swim meets and pool parties, it hosted a large maple tree and the city’s only recorded hanging, done by a mob of angry citizens in 1889.

There are several different accounts of the execution, each with slight variations, but both tell the story of a feud that led a man to blow up a local building with the hopes of killing his adversary inside. The man who triggered the explosion was arrested, but later, while the sheriff was away, an angry mob seized him and hanged him from the tree.

One newspaper account of the hanging tells the story of a feud that originated in Chicago between two men: Albert Schaeffer and George Bodala.

Bodala fled to Chicago and then moved to the Issaquah area to avoid Schaeffer’s harassment, but Schaeffer followed Bodala and blew up his Issaquah house, killing the entire Bodala family.

The next day, an agitated mob took Schaeffer while the sheriff was at lunch, and demanded Schaeffer confess to the killings. Schaeffer refused, and the mob strung him from the tree for 30 seconds. Again, the angry people demanded a confession, and again he refused, and they responded by stringing him up for 45 seconds.

They demanded a confession one last time, but when Schaeffer again refused, they hanged him until he died.

The other account, from a local man, tells the story of an unnamed man using dynamite to blow up a boarding house — on the site of modern-day Issaquah Middle School — in an attempt to kill his former girlfriend and her new lover inside.

The blast destroyed the building and killed a miner, but not the man’s girlfriend or her lover.

The man stood trial for the crime, but while the sheriff was away having dinner the night of the trial, the mob took the man, stole a clothesline from the boarding house where the sheriff was dining, and used the clothesline to hang the man from the tree.

After the man was dead, the lynch mob did not return the clothesline to its rightful owner, forcing those at the boarding house to find a new way to dry their clothes.

Prohibition spawns hooch and hoods

Event: Ku Klux Klan rallies in Issaquah

Next, we fast forward to 1924 and the age of Prohibition.

While Issaquah played host to a fair number of bootleggers, it also hosted Washington’s largest-ever Ku Klux Klan rally at the site of the current Issaquah Transit Center, at the corner of modern-day Newport Way and state Route 900.

On July 26, the KKK took the site by storm and created a massive spectacle, treating 13,000 attendees to “stirring, patriotic music” from a 32-piece band, a play by schoolchildren and speeches about “Americanism,” so citizens could form firsthand opinions of the kind and tolerant organization, according to contemporary accounts.

Oh, by the way, there was a 40-foot tall and 27-foot wide “fiery” electric cross looming over the rally, and a $1,000 fireworks show that capped off the night.

The enormous event was nonetheless peaceful. The secret society initiated 250 new Klansmen, and sheriff’s deputies maintained order over the masses. Later, hooded Klansmen directed traffic and managed the two-hour traffic jam that followed.

The KKK first organized in Issaquah in April 1924 on the top floor of the still-standing Mercantile Building along Front Street North, and among those subject to harassment were local Catholics. Klansmen were known to pay midnight visits to Catholics’ homes.

By the 1930s, the Klan had died out in the region.

Mysterious plunge into the abyss

Event: D.B. Cooper airliner hijacking

We now ascend into the murky skies of November 1971.

On a Boeing 727 flight from Portland, Ore., to Seattle on Nov. 24 — the day before Thanksgiving — a well-dressed man going by the name D.B. Cooper handed a note to a flight attendant.

“I have a bomb in my briefcase. I will use it if necessary. I want you to sit next to me. You are being hijacked,” the note read.

Cooper demanded $200,000 in $20 bills and four civilian parachutes when the flight landed.

For parachutes, the FBI turned to the Issaquah Skyport — an airport that offered skydiving, gliding and hot air ballooning — where Costco now stands.

(On a related note, the Skyport also led to deadly plane accidents and skydiving misfortunes. On one occasion, former Issaquah police investigator Ed Mott said a plane carrying seven or eight skydivers crashed during takeoff, killing everybody aboard.)

Mott and a Washington state trooper delivered the parachutes. They made the usual 30-minute commute from Issaquah to the airport in less than 15 minutes.

The trip fried the police car’s engine, Mott recalled.

Cooper collected the money and the parachutes and, with a small flight crew, he directed the plane back in the air, heading south.

He then parachuted from the plane about 10,000 feet over southwest Washington. The jump occurred at night and in a rainstorm

Cooper was never seen again; whether he survived the jump is still a mystery.

Abductions cast shadow on sunny day

Event: Notorious serial killer claims Issaquah victims

The next stop on our tour takes us to the shores of Lake Sammamish in the hot summer sunshine of 1974.

The day was Sunday, July 14, and 40,000 people flocked to the park to bask in the sun, cool off in the water and quench their thirsts with cold beer at Rainier Brewery’s annual Beer Bust.

Among the crowd was a 5-foot-10-inch, 160-pound man with light brown hair and his arm in a sling. He approached at least five women at the park, asking for help putting a sailboat atop his car.

Just before noon, one agreed to help the seemingly injured man do so, but when they arrived at his brown Volkswagen Beetle in a lot adjacent to the beach, there was no boat. He apologized to the woman for misleading her and said the boat was still at his parents’ house “up the hill.”

The woman backed out, and the man returned to the beach. At about 12:30 p.m., he approached Janice Ott, a blond, 23-year-old King County youth services probation caseworker.

Ott looked younger than her age and was at the park alone. Her husband was working in California, so she had ridden her yellow 10-speed bike to the park from her Front Street home just two doors south of The Issaquah Press building.

When the man approached Ott and asked for help with his boat, she agreed, and they walked to his car. After that, she vanished.

The man returned to the beach later that afternoon and asked the same favor of 18-year-old Denise Naslund, who was studying to be a computer programmer and was working as an office helper to pay her way through night school.

Naslund, who had long black hair, was with her boyfriend and another couple.

The man in the sling stopped her at about 4:30 p.m. as she walked back to her friends from the restroom, and she agreed to help. Like Ott, Naslund vanished.

Police and volunteers quickly launched a search for the missing girls, scouring the park, and, thanks to witnesses, police soon had a sketch of the suspect.

They also had his first name: Ted.

It was not until later that the man’s full name emerged: Ted Bundy.

Nearly two months later, on Sept. 7, 1974, a grouse hunter discovered what had happened to Ott and Naslund.

“I think I found two shallow graves,” the hunter told police. “And there’s one with long, black hair.”

The hunter found bones from what he believed to be two people north of Interstate 90, just northeast of a former railroad trestle, now the Sunset Way Interchange.

They also found teeth, and, tellingly, black hair, which Mott said looked like a wig left on the ground.

While most of the remains were those of Ott and Naslund, one of the leg bones had been from a victim not abducted in Issaquah.

They were the first remains to be found from a Bundy murder. The notorious serial killer went on to kill more than 30 women.

Authorities were eventually able to use credit card receipts to place Bundy in Issaquah when Ott and Naslund were abducted. He filled up his Beetle at a gas station at the northwest corner of the intersection of Front Street and Sunset Way, where the Issaquah Library now stands.

Bundy may have also stopped at The Issaquah Press. After his mug shot was released, The Press’ then-bookkeeper insisted he had been there and she had sold him a copy of the newspaper.

Remains of other Bundy victims were found at Taylor Mountain, southeast of Tiger Mountain.

The state of Florida executed Bundy by electric chair in January 1989.

Explosion of passion

Event: Waterhole Tavern blows up under shady circumstances

For the last stop on our tour, we travel ahead to 1980.

The destination is set back from the Kentucky Fried Chicken on Northwest Gilman Boulevard, where the Waterhole Tavern stood.

The joint was a dive, and a frequent site of drunken brawls. When fights erupted, police waited until the fighting subsided before entering, arresting those still standing and hospitalizing those who weren’t.

The tavern shut down in June 1980. Owner Dave Brumpton planned to reopen the bar that September as a topless club, even though city code outlawed such an establishment. But Brumpton charged ahead, figuring the city didn’t have enough money to sue him and shut down the club.

Suspected Seattle mobster and strip club granddaddy Frank Colacurcio Sr. also allegedly had a problem with Brumpton planning to open a club in Issaquah.

Colacurcio demanded Brumpton hire his women, install his soda and cigarette machines, and give him a cut of the profit.

Brumpton said no, and the building mysteriously exploded at 11:30 p.m. Aug. 28. The blast sent a massive fireball hundreds of feet in the air and brought 70 firefighters to the scene.

Newcastle, Wash., resident Skyler Fuller catches air on the bouncy slide during Newcastle Days Sept. 13, 2009. This photo printed in the Oct. 2, 2009 edition of Newcastle News.

Seattle sportscaster Tony Ventrella stars as Ebenezer Scrooge in a 2009 production of “A Christmas Carol.”

The Chicago skyline at night in May 2010, taken from my sister’s apartment building.

Runners take off from the starting line in the Newcastle 5K, in Newcastle, Wash., August 2010.

Graves outside of Sitka, Alaska.

A spider creeps across his web in Lake Boren Park, Newcastle, Wash., in September 2009.

Snow blankets train tracks in Issaquah, Wash., November 2010.