Margriet Schavemaker

ARtours initiator and Head of Collections at Stedelijk Museum, considers AR to be a great tool for museums to 'enter the 21st Century.' One aspect is to bring the collected/donated artworks 'back to their origins', another to make them available in public spaces through the organisation of interactive tours.
AR and Art, are for Margriet, quite connected. She argues that modern art was from the beginning about 'augmenting reality', about adding something, layers of information, more dimensions, or re-contextualization, an argument she exemplifies with the Futurists, the Constructivists, the Situationists as well as Van Gogh and Duchamp.
The technology around AR means smartphones, googles, 3D Games, TV and films, all of which attempt immersion or fusion, ultimately dreaming about a seamless interface or a bionic eye of sorts. What can artists then do with this technology (if they are not resisting it)? Her conclusion from a museum perspective connects with Lev Manovich's The Poetics of Augmented Space (2002 and 2005); and as an enthusiast about the technology, she suggest to 'cherish analog AR(t)' and to 'experiment with the technique.'

Julian Oliver

artist and known for his project Artvertiser, sees the purpose of AR in 'improving reality.' For artists specifically, a 'state of play' is appropriate. He presented several of his projects to make the point, such as Levelhead  - a memory game where you move your character through three, progressively more difficult cubes. The Artvertiser is an exhibition platform for art in urban settings, a technology that reads an existing advertisement or product placement, and re-places it with an artwork (which likely is archival rather then live footage).

Julian's talk was structured around different marker technologies (their pros and cons), fiducial, digital compass, and natural feature or planar image tracking. Since most of these are proprietary softwares, and most of the programming (of vision-based AR) extremely difficult, he proposes to collaborate on an alternative Open Source toolkit for AR. Julian talked about the next steps for independent AR development, which for him is essentially is about sharing code.

Frans Vogelaar

from the Hybrid Space Lab and the KHM, presented projects from both. His focus was on the 'hybrid net', a combination between the internet and the 'internet of things'. Tracing back to the end of the 80s, he gave examples and results of design thinking, part of an architectural practice/brainstorming, where 'the right to broadcast' foresaw youtopia and social networks. Frans presented several, synthetic projects that attempted to design a hybrid - that is digital, virtual and real world. This includes cognitive architecture, idensities, or (real) exhibition spaces where the content will be produced by its visitors.

Carolien Teunisse

ended the presentations, introducing the database Augmented Reality Archive for art works, which she had helped build at V2_. This database, which contains detailed information on several aspects of artworks, will be translated for the web, and published online later this summer.

Public

As a results of the talks, or maybe from the very beginning, the audience presented certain principal concerns on AR: Why (do we want to augment reality)? What defines an AR artist? Is AR even the appropriate terminology?

The AR - Archive connection was felt strongly, since most AR applications draw on archived material for re-usage into and superimposition onto ordinary reality. In this sense, how can media add to the physicality of space (and maybe extend into time?), and how does it improve artistic works?

For some, AR is about taking V(irtual) R(eality) into real life; for others, it is a 'toy' that requires a critical perspective. Some wonder about its social media aspect, in terms of whether AR can be the 'new commons' and how? In any case, there is a considerable difference between commercial and artistic AR, specially in terms of funding and the lack of open source software - something Julian Oliver is working on.

Links:

http://www.eyewriter.org/
http://www.layar.com/
http://www.c360.nl/artamsterdam10/panorama9.html
http://sndrv.nl/ARflashmob/
http://www.manovich.net/
http://theartvertiser.net/
http://www.wikitude.org/
http://designmind.frogdesign.com/blog/augmented-in-berlin.html
http://www.hitl.washington.edu/artoolkit/
http://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~gk/PTAM/
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~ajd/Scene/
http://selectparks.net/~julian/levelhead/
http://selectparks.net/~julian/six-composite-acts/
http://www.hybridspacelab.net/
http://www.010.nl/catalogue/book.php?id=725
http://www.platform21.nl/page/241/en

"This is pretty awesome. A whole series of inventions were made during the three months at The Institute for the Unstable Media in the Netherlands. One of which in the series called “Tweet Bubble” is a shirt and software combination that shows off your tweets in real life. There are plenty of other awesome inventions in this series as well, Paper Tweets, Classic Tweets and more. This is a must check out if you are a huge Twitter fan."

Jun 29, 2009 Hell Yeah Dude  

http://hellyeahdude.com

"If you’re not content with broadcasting your latest blog-post, obsession, or 140-character sluice of brain-diarrhea to your Twitter followers, V2_ Lab’s Pocket Tweets can help you take those messages into the real world. Their Java app displays your latest tweet on your cellphone; cut a speech bubble into your pocket and you can happily parade around inviting people to read your chest."

Wednesday, Jul 1st 2009 by Chris Davies  

http://www.slashgear.com

http://hellyeahdude.com	http://www.slashgear.com	http://www.pocket-lint.com

In his final project for the Rietveld Academie, Sander Veenhof tried to grow a plant by means of the online attention drawn by the project. The Publicity Plant received light only when someone blogged or tweeted about it, or searched for it on Google. A relation that a generation with more friends on online social networks than in real life might feel familiar with. As a communication specialist, I was sorry to see that the original pot of flowers that Sander had in mind turned out a mere dry stalk.

In his Toaster Project, Thomas Thwaites made things difficult himself. During his final year, he took it upon himself to build a toaster out of raw materials. In this quest, he collected iron ore, copper and other materials, from which he succeeded in building the appliance. Exceptionally impressive was the way he got hold of plastic. In talking with BP, Thomas found out that it was impossible for an individual to manufacture plastic out of crude oil, so he decided that, in a world so poisoned by plastic waste, he’d be justified in extracting it from the ground as a raw material. The highlight of the evening came when he connected the toaster to the electricity network for the first time ever. Unfortunately, within two seconds, the toaster’s resistance burned out with a flash, and Thomas ended up with two slices of white bread rather than toast.

I was also looking forward to the Coinflipper demonstration by Dotmancando. The idea of a machine that can toss a coin with pure objectivity sounds like a very useful invention in these uncertain times in which making decisions can sometimes be difficult. But according to Dot, that wasn’t what was needed. “When we toss a coin,” he said, “we already know which decision we want to make. We want the coin to confirm our decision.” So he made a series of Coinflippers, that toss coins in such a way that they always land with the desired side up. “In our complicated world, it’s wonderful to be able to completely control at least one element,” he said. 

Fantastic projects that were all amusing at first glance perhaps, but each posed deeper philosophical questions that aid a viewer in these days of crisis. The work that most directly related to the crisis was Cesar Harada’s impressive Open_Sailing project. This summer he will travel to Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria, and then sail down the Danube to the Black Sea. The project consists of a floating island, offering an apocalyptic-looking yet serious opportunity to escape fears caused by the crisis. Open_Sailing can’t be summed up in a few lines, but we’ll likely be hearing a lot more about this work soon. Keep track of Cesar and his team’s progress at: http://opensailing.net/blog/