The Artvertiser (image above, video below) by Julian Oliver, Clara Boj, Diego Diaz and Damian Stewart is:

an urban, hand-held, augmented-reality project exploring on-site substitution of advertising content for the purposes of exhibiting art.

Using shape and motion detection the software can be taught to recognise individual advertisements. These adverts can then, viewed through the software, become a virtual ‘canvas’ which an artist can exhibit images or video. Visual documentation of the intervention can be immediately uploaded to on line galleries such as Flickr and YouTube.

While offering itself as a new platform for public art, The Artvertiser seeks to highlight the contradiction of Public Space in the context of what can and cannot be written on the surface of our cities. Neither graffiti or Fine Art, The Artvertiser exploits the inevitable redistribution of these surfaces in media such as digital film and photography, providing an alternative memory of the city. By leveraging the internet as a redistribution mechanism, The Artvertiser supposes that an urban site dense with proprietary imagery can be re-purposed as an exhibition space for art and archived as such in turn. Similarly, on-site exhibitions can be held whereby pedestrians are invited to use the looking device to view an exhibition on the buildings around them. Finally, non-live video can also be used. This enables artists to substitute advertisements in film and video with alternative content.

Originally seen on the Spectre mailing list.

N Building (images above and video below) by Teradadesign and Qosmo is a QR Code augmented building facade near Tachikawa station in Japan which is accessed through a custom iPhone application.

By reading the QR Code with your mobile device you will be taken to a site which includes up to date shop information. In this manner we envision a cityscape unhindered by ubiquitous signage and also an improvement to the quality and accuracy of the information itself…If a QR Code is static, what could we do with a dynamic device like the iPhone? Our proposed vision of the future is one where the facade of the building disappears, showing those inside who want to be seen. As you press on the characters their comments made on online appear in speech bubbles. You can also browse shop information, make reservations and download coupons. Rather than broadly tagging, we display information specific to the building in a manner in which the virtual (iPhone) serves to enhance the physical (N Building). Our goal is to provide an incentive to visit the space and a virtual connection to space without necessarily being present.

Originally seen on Alexander Reeders Vimeo profile.

I managed to get my hands on a Violet Mir:ror RFID reader this week (I briefly reviewed this in April) to evaluate it for use in teaching and possibly personal project use. While I still maintain that this is an interesting product which encourages it’s users to imagine how they could use this (and it does come with a variety of working suggestions) testing was for my purposes disappointing and here’s why - my reasons are threefold.

1. Firstly the Violet website and the instructions that come with the Mir:ror state that you need a permanent broadband internet connection, in fact the instructions that come with the Mir:ror state that the internet connection is necessary to fully use the device, suggesting some things are possible without an internet connection. This is not the case, without an internet connection you simply can not use the device as every time you connect it to the computer it registers with Violet’s website - no connection = impossible to register. This isn’t too problematic, why after all would you not have an internet connection when the device is for the internet of things? What is more problematic is that the device makes its connection to the internet through a helper application called Mirware and this can not be configured to work through a firewall.
2. My second issue is again with the Mirware software and what it does when an RFID tag (called zstamp for the Mir:ror) is detected or removed from sensor range. If you watch the video below you’ll notice that when the zstamp (rabbit zstamp in this case) is detected there is a little popup dialog on screen (bottom right hand corner) and a sound (the second sound on the video). This is useful for feedback but can not be disabled in the applications preferences. The popup is set to appear above applications (high priority window) so even if you have masked off the screen with a fullscreen application it will still appear above that. The sound is similarly impossible to disable.
3. Last issue is with the device itself. The first sound you hear on the video comes from the device. It has no switch to mute this or to possibly turn off the flashing light.

Below is a video showing how the device works, looks and sounds.

All of this is a real shame, a consumer-based RFID product is always going to have a limited appeal as the author here notes, but it seems foolish to restrict through a lack of configuration options (all of the above is to do with configuration) what potentially could be an open piece of hardware for endless uses. Without firewall configuration you would not be able to use the device in any administrated network such as universities, companies, conference venues, institutions etc. Without preferences and/or physical switches to enable disable features students wishing to leverage the device for project work, artists creating art works or anyone employing it for presentation or teaching purposes simply won’t.

A final note, it seems that Violet, the French company who make the Mir:ror, Nabaztag and related products have gone bankrupt and are in the process of being taken over by Mindscape, a French CD-ROM / Game publisher. The Nabaztags future seems safe (in fact if you look at Mindscapes French homepage you can see they already list the Nabaztag) and there has been a user led ’save the Nabaztag campaign‘ but unfortunately their is no mention of the Mir:ror so the future seems very bleak for this device.

I’m curious if anyone out there has tested the Touchatag device (formally Tikitag). It’s in the same price range and works similarly to Mir:ror (i.e. through a web service), does it have the same limitations?

Sensitive Rose is the second work (see also ROSAdosVENTOS.mobi) by Martha Gabriel which attempts to create a sort of net.art / mobile type art work. It is:

an interactive compass rose formed by mobile tags that map people’s desires. The interactions happen via cell phone and the results can be seen in a large screen projection (or computer large screen). The work intention is to “navigate” in the desires of the people, in a secret way, through a ciphered poetics of tags, which can not be deciphered with naked eyes.

While feeling awkward (why interact with a screen through a mobile phone when clicking through using a mouse is more intuitive and quicker) in its use, the work is one of the few attempts I’ve seen by an artist to leverage this technology in a non gaming context.

Originally seen on 2d Code.

Are you ready for the Internet of Things? is a conference this 4th of December 2009 at IMAL.org in Brussels. Organised by Council (a thinkthank on the Internet of Things) and Tinker.it the event will bring together leading experts, artists and designers such as Nicolas Nova, Rafi Haladjian (Violet) and Timo Arnall.

Unfortunately registration is already closed as the event is full and the event is not being streamed online but short videos of the workshops will be available after the event and notes will be on the Council website.

EDIT: An email from iMAL says their streaming video for the evening event will online here.