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.

An event last January that I wished I’d known about was the Signal:Noise event at The Show Room in London. The event seems to have been a historical overview of the influence of Cybernetics on new media art. How concepts such as communication and conversation theory, feedback etc. have influenced it’s development and become fundamental to the form.

Through the application of mechanical and scientific models for the understanding of social and political life, cybernetic theory – in particular notions of feedback – informed the development of many early conceptual and participatory artistic practices in the 1960s/70s, yet its influence is still under-recognized. Signal:Noise aims to bring together people who are working with these ideas in the fields of art, design, architecture and theory in order to re-open discussion around this discourse, looking at how it has informed cultural, social and political life, in the past and present.

I expected to see Professor Roy Ascott mentioned at some point in the documentation of this event however surprisingly no but it has introduced me to artist Stephen Willats and his recently republished essay The Artist as an Instigator of Changes in Social Cognition and Behaviour (image below from publication). More on this at a later date as I need to get hold of a copy and compare it to another text I’m reading.

There is a good review on the Furtherfield site summing up the event.

A very interesting post which contains an excerpt from the translated final chapter of Media, New Media, Postmedia by Domenico Quaranta has just been posted at Rhizome.

Last December Esquire published an augmented reality issue (image above). Can’t say I’m an avid reader or fan of Esquire and yes we are wandering quite a lot off the topic of networked art however the idea of this issue intrigued me enough to find a copy. It only appeared in America so I’ve been trawling eBay for the last month trying to find a copy while the application you use with it can simply be downloaded from the Esquire site.

The number of markers used in the magazine is disappointingly low, five for content and one for a Lexus advertisement, but this is hardly surprising, it is a magazine after all. The first marker (three images above) triggers an introduction by Robert Downey Jr. What’s interesting here is not just that the application is detecting the marker but when tilted along two different axis it’s also detecting its orientation and the same marker triggers different content.

Almost the same technique is used in the style section (two images above) of the magazine, the four orientations of the marker here trigger animations of the same model wearing different clothes for different seasons, an interactive catwalk. The design of this section is quite good, lots of animation and the video of yourself holding up the magazine becomes the backdrop to the whole scene.

The last interesting section (I’ve skipped one as it simply plays an audio file) is the Lexus advert (two images above) which takes a completely different approach / design to using the marker. Instead of seeing a scene pop up from the magazine you see the video of yourself modified through a number of filters and overlaid graphics (think Terminator vision!). This machine vision is supposed to be how the Lexus can ‘see’ and detect cars in front in order to reduce speed / apply automatic brakes etc.

Overall there are a couple of interesting techniques in the magazine. Its last page has a list of non computer things which are already ‘augmented’ versions of something and compared to the content is almost a profound way of finishing with the statement, Augmented Reality, it’s newness is really just in its method of presentation.

Below is editor David Granger demoing the interactive magazine.

The second work I’ve stumbled on in a number of weeks with the same name of Driftnet (seems to be popular in new media installations/performances) is Drift Net (images above and below) by Choy Ka Fai. This work:

is an interactive/devised performance exploring the concept of the Internet blogging phenomenon – blogging as a virtual way of living and re-living a moment in time or perhaps even as future memories.

Interestingly enough there seems to be a connection between this work and Driftnet by Norimichi Hirakawa. Norimichi Hirakawa has collaborated with Ryoji Ikeda (formerly of Dumb Type) on a number of projects over the last few years while Fujimoto Takayuki of Dumbtype created the Lighting Design & Set Design for this Drift Net. Perhaps the concentrated network of these Japanese new media artists has played a factor (consciously or otherwise) in this name appearing more than once.

Below are some videos of different parts of the performance.