Still on the theme of visual interfaces, Augmented Window designed / directed / curated by Thierry Fournier is:

is a “sensory observatory”. Different artists and authors have been invited to produce a critical reading or original work on the landscape itself…The observed landscape is the starting point for all these contributions, from the critical approaches and questions it raises to the very modes of observation it evokes: immersion vs. distancing, surveillance, geo-localization, etc. Invited authors produce these contributions either while exploring the landscape (in situ with a smartphone), or remotely (via an online content management system). They are superposed to the live video feed of the landscape seen from the window.

The screen acts like a window, framing the landscape as a real-time video. By zooming in and scanning the window intuitively through touch, visitors explore the different contributions, comparing and contrasting them. The choice of a fixed and vertical frame favors rich and comprehensive interactions via a sensory experience. Augmented Window thus produces a curatorial, collective and prospective representation of a landscape, where typically separated approaches (art, geography, architecture, documentary, fiction…) overlap in a common critical perspective, implemented through the principles of “augmented reality”. In this sense, augmented reality is not addressed here in terms of immersion or additional layers of information, but rather questioned as a possible means for creating a field of tension between different points of view.

This particular work is similar to previous works posted in that it provides an impossible vision for its user. It is not a vision of distance and so less about connecting distance places instead it is about a means of viewing local space in a new way.

LIMINAL Reality part of a larger research project called Building w/immaterials:

an association of architects, programmers and curators doing independent research into digital media, visual arts and built environments : spatial inquiry for the invention of new structural typologies.

was a group exhibition in 2008 of artists working with ‘virtual’ worlds, notably Second Life. The exhibition:

opened a window between two worlds: technically between a physical world and a virtual world, and metaphorically between an art world (a specific milieu of digital art in Paris) and the artists immersive environment (on the Sizigia Island, Second Life). Its Mixed Reality infrastructure permitted the creation of multiple points of view for both simultaneous (albeit asynchronous) interaction in each world, through their representation as polyvalent, spatially compatible, creative environments. By obfuscating the distance and differences between them using this infrastructure, the project became a “a device based on a triple duality of context (real/virtual), process (immersion/emergence), manufacturing (active/passive). This autopoietic system is both a reading machine, a window, and a decoding grid, between the real and virtual worlds. Using this to reveal its unconscious, the project is also a protocol to reconstitute data, a generator of network connections and a cultural accelerator.”

This is yet another work as visual interface for connecting two or more places separated in time and / or space. This time it is the types of space, ‘real’ and ‘virtual’, which are considered seperate in order for the work to function as a window between them. There are noticable similarities with The Gate however in this instance the metaphor of window (used by the artists themselves) seems to not be quite enough as it is not just a framed area to peer through but rather a whole space that is stepped into and merged with Second Life. Below are some more images of the exhibition in the form of a Prezi presentation.

Metaverse papers #3 (part of ISEA2011) is a talk about Building W/immaterials new project INFRA|VERGENCE_WIP. For details see the video below.

Over the last few months I’ve gradually trickled out a few posts on works which are audio-visual interfaces for connecting two or more places separated in time and / or space, e.g. Hole in Space and Urban Echo. These have stuck in my head, not because of how conceptually sophisticated they are but because of how simple they are and how people can very intuitively use them to communicate. There are many works over the duration of this weblog which could be grouped into this same category (e.g. here) and part of the reason for this is that they are have a direct line back to the very first telematic works (e.g. here). The following few posts will add to this collection of works that I know of.

The Tunnel Under the Atlantic by Maurice Benayoun is a televirtual art installation which established a link between Montreal and Paris in 1995.

The Tunnel enabled hundreds of people from both sides to meet. From each side, a two-meter-diameter tube, made us think of a linear crossing of our planet, as if it were dug under the ground, shouting up in the middle of the Contemporary Art Museum in Montreal on one side, and in the lower floor of the Pompidou Centre in Paris. The route that lies between the two spots is no simulation of the ocean underground, it is a block of symbolic matter in which the geological strata leave the place to iconographic strata. They are layers of pictures taken in the history of the two cultures that everybody can reveal each time they dig. The collective exploration uncovers fragments of rare or familiar pictures, which are as may opportunities to wake up the collective memory of the participants. Helping us to loitering and talking to people, these remains transform everybody’s digging route into a unique experience, into a personal assemblage made up of sounds and pictures amidst a three dimensional space architectured through their moves. While digging, the visitors can talk with their partners across the Atlantic Ocean. The sounds of their voices are anchored in space and they enable everyone to find out the directions where to meet the other. I takes six days to built and pave the symbolic space before the de visu meeting of the two-continent diggers…The televirtual event -i.e. a remote connection of people in an interactive symbolic space- is filmed with four virtual cameras. What they get is automatically mixed and edited and that takes into account each participant speech. They can discover, in the event of a counter-shot, their own live pictures floating within the space they have just dug up. They will not be able to see each other before the two sides of the tunnel meet. The exchange, essentially made up of sounds so far, then becomes visual. When the meeting is achieved, other persons can at last take the same way or create new ones as if they were in a collective quest of a shared memory.

The text above is an edited text taken from e artists statement on his website. It’s well worth visiting the site to read the full text.

Thanks for the link to Frédérique Santune.

In Paris last week and went to 2062, aller-retour vers le futur (2062, return towards the future), in particular to attend the conference Les fins des temps (The End of time) and see the festivals exhibition. The conference was interesting but no connection to network research there.

The exhibition was overall disapointing, poorly laid out / curated with works not having room to breadth, be seen or heard in isolation. One work in the exhibition that was network related was Netlag by Pleix (don’t judge it by my poor photos, click through to the site to see better ones). The work is a video installation using outdoor webcams where imagery has been sourced through:

a software called Picksucker to make a snapshot of 1600 webcams all over the world each 10 minutes.

Worth mentioning as there are some similarities to Hello World! seen and written about a few weeks ago. The work isn’t live which is disapointing (Hello World! isn’t live either) however the suggestion of a map of global webcams juxtaposed is interesting. A shame it doesn’t go further.

The festival runs until the 25th of March. The live events and conferences are worth a visit but don’t expect much from the exhibition.

I was in London last week and managed to get to the Saatchi Gallery to see Hello World! Or: How I Learned to Stop Listening and Love the Noise. The work is being shown just offsite in a space in Duke of York Square as part of Saatchi Screen, the Saatchi Gallery’s first ever screening room for film and video (which in this instance touches on new media as well). The work is:

a large-scale audio visual installation comprised of thousands of video diaries gathered from the internet. Each of the 5,000 videos that make up the video installation features a single individual speaking candidly to an imagined audience from a private space such as a bedroom, kitchen, or dorm room. The multi-channel sound composition glides between individuals and the group, allowing viewers to listen in on individual speakers or become immersed in the overall cacophony.

On the artists site the following statement says:

The project is a meditation on the contemporary plight of democratic, participative media and the fundamental human desire to be heard. On one hand, new media technologies like YouTube have enabled new speakers at an alarming rate. On the other hand, no new technologies have emerged that allow us to listen to all of these new public speakers.

Previous work by Christopher Baker includes Murmer Study. Hello World is showing until February 28th 2012.