Augmented Bodies: Functional and Rhetorical Uses of Augmented Reality in Fashion

Augmented Reality (AR) is increasingly changing our perception of the world. The spreading of Quick Response (QR), Radio Frequency (RFID) and AR tags has provided ways to enrich physical items with digital information. By a process of alignment the codes can be read by the cameras contained in handheld devices or special equipment and add computer-generated contents – including 3-D imagery – to real objects in real time. As a result, we feel we belong to a multi-layered dimension, to a mixed environment where the real and the virtual partly overlap. Fashion has been among the most responsive domains to this new technology. Applications of AR in the field have already been numerous and diverse: from Magic Mirrors in department stores to 3-D features in fashion magazines; from augmented fashion shows, where models are covered with tags or transformed into walking holograms, to advertisements consisting exclusively of more or less magnified QR codes. Bodies are thus at the same time augmented and encrypted, offered to the eye of the digital camera to be transfigured and turned into a secret language which, among other functions, can also have that of becoming a powerful tool to bypass censorship

Handling the creative process of 'Olha pra Ti!'

This paper delves into the creative process of project ‘Olha pra Ti!’ (‘Look at You!’), a book/journal for teens to reflect about their relationship with their bodies through drawing/writing, developed in the context of the Masters in Design. A project with peculiar origins – a graphic style looking for a purpose – went through a goal oriented visual reformulation, which, in turn, led to a complete project restructuring. We identified the importance of creating a comfortable, private, supported and flexible experience, and how these could be accomplished through the book’s physical and graphic features. We analyzed a reference project and various plastic languages and techniques liable to be ‘dissected’. By putting the contents of the book to the test, the personal experiences of the author served as a starting point for the illustrations. By anchoring the definition of the remaining content levels, illustration conquered an essential role in the project and opened it up to a bigger audience (from just girls to any teen). The diversity of visuals our book achieves is only possible, because design and audience-centered choices were combined to create an experience that takes full advantage of its format and expands it in space and time. As a future development, a usability test is intended to be done.publishe

Customized 2D Barcode Sensing for Anti-Counterfeiting Application in Smart IoT with Fast Encoding and Information Hiding

With the development of commodity economy, the emergence of fake and shoddy products has seriously harmed the interests of consumers and enterprises. To tackle this challenge, customized 2D barcode is proposed to satisfy the requirements of the enterprise anti-counterfeiting certification. Based on information hiding technology, the proposed approach can solve these challenging problems and provide a low-cost, difficult to forge, and easy to identify solution, while achieving the function of conventional 2D barcodes. By weighting between the perceptual quality and decoding robustness in sensing recognition, the customized 2D barcode can maintain a better aesthetic appearance for anti-counterfeiting and achieve fast encoding. A new picture-embedding scheme was designed to consider 2D barcode, within a unit image block as a basic encoding unit, where the 2D barcode finder patterns were embedded after encoding. Experimental results demonstrated that the proposed customized barcode could provide better encoding characteristics, while maintaining better decoding robustness than several state-of-the-art methods. Additionally, as a closed source 2D barcode that could be visually anti-counterfeit, the customized 2D barcode could effectively prevent counterfeiting that replicate physical labels. Benefitting from the high-security, high information capacity, and low-cost, the proposed customized 2D barcode with sensing recognition scheme provide a highly practical, valuable in terms of marketing, and anti-counterfeiting traceable solution for future smart IoT applications

Presence in blended spaces

Mixed reality technologies have been around for over ten years but it is only with the proliferation of smart phones and tablet (computers) that mixed and augmented reality interaction is reaching the mass market. There are now enough examples of mixed reality interactions that we can begin to abstract principles of design and principles of user experience (UX) for these new spaces of interaction. In this paper I develop the notion of mixed reality as a blendedspace. Mixed reality is a blend of a physical space and a digital space. The term ‘blend’ here is borrowed from blending theory which is a theory of cognition that highlights the importance of cross domain mappings and conceptual integration to our thought process that are grounded in physically-based spatial schemas. The concept of a blendedspace is developed by recognizing that physical space and digital space can both be described in terms of the objects and agents who inhabit the space, the structure of the objects’ relationships (the topology of the space) and the changes that take place in the space (the volatility, or dynamics of the space). The blendedspace will be more effective if the physical and digital spaces have some recognizable and understandable correspondences. The issue of presence in this blendedspace is then discussed and it is suggested that traditional definitions of presence are inadequate to describe the experiences that blendedspaces offer. Presence is considered as interaction between the self and the content of the medium within which the self exists, and place is this medium. Blendedspaces mean that people have an extended presence; from their physical location into digital worlds

Found Poems, Member Checking and Crises of Representation

In order to establish veracity , qualitative researchers frequently rely on member checks to insure credibility by giving participants opportunities to correct errors, challenge interpretations and assess results; however, member checks are not without drawbacks. This paper describes an innovative approach to conducting member checks. Six members of a learning organization participated in two group interviews to examine the use of poetry as a method to promote individual and organizational learning. Several weeks later, participants received a copy of their transcripts and were asked to create a “found poem” to reflect their thoughts and feelings about using poetry as a learning tool. There was resonance between the interview themes produced by traditional open coding methods and those using participant - created found poems. However, the found poems added an emotional depth and connect ion that was missing from the traditional approach of coding qualitative data. This suggests that participant - created found poems can provide an agentic alternative to the usual method of member checking and also expand the notions of aesthetic approaches within qualitative research

Arts in the Hotel Industry: Bridging Creative and Financial Goals for a Twenty-First Century Experience

The hospitality landscape of cities has changed significantly in recent years: hotels are themselves destinations. The trend is to manage atmospheric interior yet not overwhelming the area with pieces. However, the fine line separating art and design has become increasingly blurry. This article will analyze the implications of displaying world-class contemporary art in hotels. In essence, art has the potential to transform the industry even further. It could even be said that exhibitions can be a boon to hotel business. Furthermore, this paper demonstrates that the emergence of boutique and life hotels will facilitate the movement of displaying artwork in hotels. In order to meet changing guest preferences, hoteliers seek innovative alternatives to traditional lodging products. Identifying specific target groups in accordance with specific hotel features is necessary to hoteliers so that they can confirm their market position. Bringing in museum quality art to the intimate environments offered by hotels will give rise to a new hotel-as-gallery phenomenon. As the hotel industry utilizes the arts as a marketing tool, the face of art will change as well. Art can benefit hotels, as hotels can benefit art