Augmented Resistance: the possibilities for AR and data driven art

This article discusses the possibilities for Augmented Reality (AR) as a driver of data based art. The combination of AR and Open Data (in the broadest post-Wikileaks sense) is seen to provide a powerful tool-set for the artist/activist to augment specific sites with a critical, context-specific data layer. Such situated interventions offer powerful new methods for the political activation of sites which enhance and strengthen traditional non- virtual approaches and should be thought of as complementary to, rather than replacing, physical intervention. I offer as a case study this author’s “NAMAland” project, a mobile artwork which uses Open Data and Augmented Reality to visualise and critique aspects of the Irish financial collapse. The project, overlayed Dublin with an activist derived data-layer which supported and enabled physical interventions, making visible/concrete abstract financial dealings through situating them in real space, enacting a virtual layer of critique which facilitated and catalysed wider debate

ECLAP 2012 Conference on Information Technologies for Performing Arts, Media Access and Entertainment

It has been a long history of Information Technology innovations within the Cultural Heritage areas. The Performing arts has also been enforced with a number of new innovations which unveil a range of synergies and possibilities. Most of the technologies and innovations produced for digital libraries, media entertainment and education can be exploited in the field of performing arts, with adaptation and repurposing. Performing arts offer many interesting challenges and opportunities for research and innovations and exploitation of cutting edge research results from interdisciplinary areas. For these reasons, the ECLAP 2012 can be regarded as a continuation of past conferences such as AXMEDIS and WEDELMUSIC (both pressed by IEEE and FUP). ECLAP is an European Commission project to create a social network and media access service for performing arts institutions in Europe, to create the e-library of performing arts, exploiting innovative solutions coming from the ICT

Bridging the physical and virtual with mobile media

This thesis examines how mobile technologies can contribute towards bridging physical and virtual space through interactive, and location-specific, media experiences. Building on a research analysis of contextual discussions and precedents, it is noticeable that there is a discord between physical and virtual space usage as they are often utilised in different situational settings. This thesis therefore develops a mobile application as a wider investigation into how the physical setting and live data can be used to achieve a better link for contextualised content between the physical and virtual in urban areas. It explores this by making a location specific media experience, where the limits of the physical space are incorporated as boundaries in the virtual environment. Further to this, live data is used to influence the dynamics of the environment so that conditions are reflective of the physical world. These investigations are utilised with Augmented Reality, providing an end application that allows the viewer to physically explore urban space within an interactive mobile media experience. This approach offers a new perspective in urban space exploration and mobile media design, highlighting that contextual significance in media experiences are important aspects to consider and design for. Ultimately, such approaches may lead to larger narratives and experiences encompassing entire cities, or other diverse geographies

La condición aumentada: prácticas artísticas entre los períodos web 2.0 y 3.0

A lo largo de estas tres últimas décadas de Internet, las prácticas artísticas más compro-metidas con el medio han ido comprobando los diferentes giros visuales y culturales provo-cados por la actualización de sus tecnologías. Del net.art al arte post-Internet hasta llegar al arte de realidad aumentada, estas prácticas artísticas han problematizado las diferentes condiciones que han marcado cada una de sus épocas. Los periodos web, desde los inicios de Internet hasta el planteado para el desarrollo del Internet de las cosas (IoT), estructuran una importante genealogía de Internet para revelar sus procesos de integración en la cultura global, desde sus inicios en el ciberespacio hasta su incorporación en los espacios físicos datificados donde se desarrolla la vida de los usuarios y sus actividades cotidianas..

The Old/New Observatory: An Artistic and Curatorial Enquiry

My project explores the history and contemporary significance of the observatory through curatorial and artistic research, principally commissions for a thematic exhibition and an artist book. The key question guiding my research asked: What could an observatory be in the 21st century, in particular, one sited within a public gallery or imagined through an artist book? This research question was investigated via archive-based enquiry into the historic Liverpool Observatory, the co-curation of an observatory themed exhibition at FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology), Liverpool, and the production an artist book. The key objective of my project was to establish a practice-based enquiry, employing both curatorial and artistic modes of investigation, into the observatory and associated contexts of observational technoscience. By researching these subjects, moving from a situated analysis of Liverpool Observatory to the observatory’s contemporary global significance, my project makes evident that the observatory, and specialised observational techniques and instruments more broadly, have become increasingly prevalent part of everyday life across the earth, and demand artistic engagement and reimagining. Furthermore, the project posits the observatory as an important touchstone and unique microcosm for our contemporary technologically mediated condition. Through practice-based research I demonstrate how the observatory’s history is one of continual change and proliferation, shifting from assemblages of instruments primarily contained within a specific site, toward an exploded form, ever more distributed, networked, and enmeshed with human sensesand nature. My research, particularly through commissioned artwork and the artist book, focuses in on the degree to which the observatory and observational technoscience is now embodied at societal, community, and individual levels. I argue that developing and manifesting an ‘old/new’ observatory within a public art gallery, of the kind produced at FACT, entitled The New Observatory, functions as a useful method to simultaneously subvert and reflect upon the historic precedents and contemporary conditions of observation. The project explores how locally embedded and situated research, employing the tools of archival research, media archaeology, and the framework of new materialism, can bring forth what may be called anachronisms of the contemporary. The New Observatory exhibition’s inherent fixity compared to the contemporary distributed character of observation is anachronistic, a contemporary chronological inconsistency, but this renders it with a peculiarly timely and subversive agency. Equally, the artist book I produced, inspired by study of observational notebooks and composed of a narrative drawn from historical and modern observational science, traditionally printed and bound, is an analogous act of contemporary anachronism. Accordingly, the project across book and exhibition, proffers itself as a method or case study for how alternative and anachronistic, yet nonetheless contemporary, observatories and analogous observational practices, may be brought forth and developed, through interactions between historical observatories and artistic practice in collaboration with socio-technical communities. I propose the subject and history of observation as a key bridge between the arts and sciences, through an enquiry employing artistic and curatorial methods. In particular I utilise the public gallery and the medium of the artist book, to examine how the gallery and artist publishing poses unique affinities with the observatory and processes of observational inscription, rendering them useful methods to engage one another. Furthermore, the book and commissions in the exhibition, investigates how observational inscription, measurements, and data, are real in themselves, constitute phenomena in their own terms, and are not simply defined by that which they represent, value, or sense. The results and practices employed in my project suggests that a practice-based enquiry of the observatory is aided by a transdisciplinary theoretical framework, which combines new materialism with the history and philosophy of science and technology. In turn, I articulate how this theoretical framework supports a practice-based study of the observatory, and how collectively they offer a useful means to explore a fundamental challenge at the heart of new materialist and posthumanist philosophy; how to move beyond singular subject-object relations and anthropocentric viewpoints. Finally, I demonstrate how the dual practices of artist and curator may cross fertilise one another, and aforementioned theoretical frameworks, which in turn catalyse the spaces of the gallery, the book, and the observatory, with a lively materiality

Housing quality and lost (public) space in Croatia

IN ENGLISH: In the post-socialist period and within the current social transition context, urban and rural Croatia has, just like other transition countries, experienced many changes in the social structure and space. One example is the housing quality which is a replica of the situation in the Croatian society and has also undergone some major changes. Socially oriented housing construction co-financed by the state and the cities is in an unfavourable position compared to private housing construction. In the last twenty years the amount of the social housing construction has been only a minor part of the total contruction work in the country. For instance, out of nine newly planned residential housing developments in Zagreb, the capital city, only three have been completed and the work on the rest of them has stopped and is unlikely to continue. Private construction work prevails especially on the edge of the city and is characterised by high density housing. This type of housing construction doesn't benefit the majority of citizens in search of accommodation (price per square meter is too high, low-quality building). There is also a big problem of the community facilities (primary and secondary infrastructure, schools, kindergartens, playgrounds, green areas, sidewalks, public transport etc.). The existing globalisation-transition circumstances of the Croatian society corroborate the fact which experts of various profiles often point out: ignoring the process of (urban) planning will irreparably damage the space. The city transformation shows the absence of comprehensive urban planning which results in an ever increasing number of random buildings which do not fit in the surroundings. This leads up to yet another important issue – the shrinking and, in some cases, disappearance of public space which becomes the “lost space“. In recent years there has been a lot of building in the city core and on the edge which does not quite fit in the existing urban structure, image or the skyline of the city. The current situation in the process of planning can be characterized as a conflict and imbalance between the powerful actors (mostly political and economic) and less powerful actors (mostly professional and civil). The actors who have the political power and influence and the ones who possess the capital are forming an “alliance” between two important layers of the social structure. The lack of civil and professional actors, “lost spatial actors”, and therefore of civic aggregation is also present and that is also the cause of public space “disappearance” and undermined process of public participation. --------------- IN CROATIAN: U postsocijalističkom razdoblju i trenutnom tranzicijskom kontekstu urbana i ruralna Hrvatska su, kao i ostale tranzicijske zemlje, doživjele mnoge promjene u društvenoj strukturi i samom prostoru. Na primjeru kvalitete stanovanja kao replike stanja u hrvatskom društvu mogu se vidjeti značajne promjene. Društveno usmjerena stambena izgradnja sufinancirana od strane države i gradova je stoga rjeđa i u nepovoljnijoj je situaciji prema privatnoj stanogradnji. Zadnjih dvadeset godina udjel socijalne stambene gradnje je zanemariv u ukupnoj izgradnji na razini zemlje. Primjerice, od devet planiranih stambenih naselja izgrađenih po modelu POS-a u Zagrebu samo su tri i završena. Na ostalima je proces gradnje zastao i ne čini se da će se privesti kraju. Privatna je gradnje prisutnija, posebno na rubovima grada, a obilježava je visoka gustoća gradnje. Ovakav tip gradnje ne odgovara većini stanovnika koji su u procesu potražnje stambene nekretnine (visoka cijena kvadratnog metra, a slaba kvaliteta gradnje). Postoji također i problem nedostatne opremljenosti susjedstva (primarna i sekundarna infrastruktura, škole, vrtići, igrališta, zelene površine, pješačke staze, javni transport itd.). Navedene globalizacijsko-tranzicijske okolnosti hrvatskog društva potvrđuju ono što eksperti različitih profila ističu, a to je da će ignoriranje procesa (urbanog) planiranja nepovratno uništiti prostor gradova. Ovakve transformacije pokazuju nedostatak sustavnog urbanog planiranja što rezultira sve većim brojem zgrada koje se ne uklapaju u neposrednu okolinu. To nadalje dovodi do drugog važnog aspekta – smanjivanja i u nekim slučajevima, nestanka javnog prostora koji postaje „izgubljeni prostor“. Posljednjih je godina izgrađen velik broj zgrada, i u središtu i na rubovima grada, koje se ne uklapaju u postojeću urbanu strukturu, izgled ili vizuru grada. Ovakvu situaciju obilježavaju sukob i neravnoteža između moćnijih društvenih aktera (većinom političkih i ekonomskih) i onih manje moćnih (većinom profesionalnih i civilnih). Politički i ekonomski akteri se često povezuju u „savez“ dvaju najjačih u društvenoj strukturi. S druge strane nedostatak utjecaja civilnih i profesionalnih aktera kao „izgubljenih prostornih aktera“ dovodi do „nestanka“ javnih prostora te smanjenja važnosti procesa participacije (sudjelovanja javnosti)

Passages metrocorporei: il corpo come dispositivo tecnologico in una estetica della transizione.

The aim of my research is to re-categorize aesthetics in relation to trans-media and digital flows, analyzing artworks from a different perspective in a “post-digital” context and re-examining the relationship between science and art.\ud Artists have begun to tackle the concepts, the tools, and the contexts of scientific and technological research: the results of their works are provocative and intriguing. I have identified, and studied extensively, those artists who have been working combining both scientific and technological approach, and so I outlined new perspectives in the art fields, in order to explain the complexity of the world following a trans-disciplinary method. The starting point of my research is Walter Benjamin’s concept of “chef d'oeuvre”, that is to say his Parisian Passages. This unfinished work, that kept the German philosopher occupied for thirteen years, from 1927 until his death in 1940, is a patchwork of quotations, fragments and thoughts jotted down with a work-in-progress conception, which has been thought to build the physiognomic construction of a dialectic image of history “in an halting condition”. In the first phase of my research, I used Benjamin’s Passages as a metaphor to draw a body geography, tracing the imprint of the body placed in an image that “floats” in an undefined space. The image offered redefines body condition and the feelings it produces in relation to the world through the use of new technologies. I identify this new condition, undertaken by body, introducing a neologism: the ‘metro-body’. This expression allows me to reconfigure and hypothesize a different level and a different meaning of corporeality. When our body is connected to technological devices, i.e. to Web, the 'intentional arc' mentioned by Merleau Ponty expands; it remains (potentially) in tension, almost on the line break. When we enter in connection with Web, the shape and the image of our body perception are “embedded”, reacting to the presence of our body with a corporeal-feedback. The corporeal-feedback consists of a complex, distinct, decomposed and hybrid image. It is at this stage of re-configuration that the condition of the metro-body comes into existence. It works as a filter between our Leib (lived body), that interacts in connection with Web and our bodies, which are virtually embodied in multiple functional identities marked with distinctive passwords and nicknames (avatar). Art has long questioned its status in relation to modern technologies, taking to understand the importance of this new and varied corporeal dimensions: from Ballard’s sci-fi literature, to Cronenberg’s films; from Artaud’s Body without Organs (CSO), to all the various forms of Body Art; from Orlan’s aesthetic and bio-politic practices, to Sterlac’s contamination between flesh and technology, up to Jaron Lanier’s virtual reality. Artists have investigated the meaning of this new existential dimension, adopting plural and innovative means and elaborating meta-narratives of bodies and changing identities. Aesthetics, considered as the science of sensory knowledge, must take into account and analyze this new social and artistic reality. In order to do that successfully, aesthetics must also be contaminated with anthropology, psychology, semiotics and natural sciences, placing itself in a trans-disciplinarity context. Within this new conception, aesthetics is no longer considered as a delimited area, but moves through bodies floating in a the displaced territory made of humankind connections. Therefore, the aim of my research should be considered as twofold. On the one hand I started my investigation dealing with what might be considered the lower part of this issue, i.e. the ways in which the “re-shaping” / “re-covering” of the aesthetic field come off. Current aesthetics might be redefined as an aesthetic touch-screen. A thorough evaluation/consideration of this composed term has led philosophers to “touch” their discipline and its tools in relation to body, intended as a container of symbolic meanings that interact and mingle with and through mechanisms of connection and hybridization with digital devices and their applications. On the other hand, I try to analyze how this new, contaminated and floating, aesthetics, is capable to illuminate a new multi-identity. In this perspective the idea of metro-body acquires an actual meaning, i.e. it anticipates new corporeal re-configurations. First of all, in order to help their emersion, I take into account the results of the investigations made by some important philosophers, such as Husserl’s corporeal distinctions, Merleau Ponty's phenomenological revision of flesh, Deleuze’s rhizomatous approach towards body and his fascination with viande. As a second step of my research, I investigate the approaches undertaken by scholars and performance artists who have interpreted and reflected on the contemporary condition of body: from the performers operating in the field of digital art, to those operating in the field of new media art; from McLuhan’s Gutenberg Galaxy, to Derrick de Kerckhove’s Brainframes; from Gregory Bateson’s ecology of the mind, to David Le Breton’s anthropology of pain, up to the prosthetic applications recently used in the medical field (from “the fastest thing on no legs”, Oscar Pistorius, to Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System, the bionic eye realized by the University of Santa Cruz in California). In this final phase of my research I try to suggest some practical examples of the metro-body concept. In order to achieve my aim, I observe and implement an ethnographic research on digital arts as well as on performing actions, reflecting on the use of body in relation to technology. I take into account the various international festivals of contemporary art and, at the same time, I try to study and give some examples of prosthetic, or plant application, in medicine, where technology and medicine are combined in a new medical anthropology. Contemporary society is facing the challenge of complexity and in this panorama the metro-body concept functions as a filter of a new bodily condition, placed between the reality and the virtual space. At the same time, aesthetics is going to participate actively, in a trans-disciplinary way, to a new form of narrative (cross-media-narrative). Therefore, we could say that a new form of trans-aesthetics (aesthetics-of-transition) is possible; it floats through hybrid bodies in a digital world. Rethinking the body is the main aim of my project.\ud \ud \ud Passages metrocorporei. Il corpo come dispositivo tecnologico in una estetica della transizione\ud La mia ricerca si orienta nel tentativo di ricategorizzazione estetica in relazione ai flussi transmediali e digitali, ripensando l’opera d’arte da una diversa prospettiva. Come punto di partenza prenderò in considerazione il “chef d’oeuvre” di Walter Benjamin: I “Passages” di Parigi. Questo lavoro incompiuto che tenne il filosofo tedesco occupato per tredici anni, dal 1927 fino alla sua fuga verso la morte nel 1940, si presenta come un montaggio di citazioni, tracce e pensieri frammentari in divenire, alla ricerca di erigere nel tempo ritrovato, una costruzione fisiognomica di un’immagine dialettica della storia “in condizione di arresto”. Nella prima fase di ricerca, scomoderò Walter Benjamin, utilizzando l’opera I “Passages” di Parigi, come metafora per tracciare un’impronta che ricalchi una geografica del corpo collocato in un’immagine che “fluttua” in uno spazio non definito. L’immagine offerta ricalcolerà la condizione corporea e il sentire in relazione con il mondo, attraverso l’utilizzo delle nuove tecnologie. Questa nuova condizione che il corpo assume, proverò a chiamarla metrocorpo. Questo termine mi permetterà di riconfigurare e stabilire un diverso grado di corporeità e un differente significato. Nel momento in cui il nostro corpo si connette al dispositivo tecnologico o inserito in uno spazio virtuale, l’“arco intenzionale” di cui parla Merleau-Ponty si espande; esso rimane in tensione (in potenza), quasi sulla linea della rottura. Nel momento di immersione in un ambiente virtuale, la nostra percezione del corpo, lo schema corporeo e l’immagine corporea si “incorporano” restituendo così al nostro corpo un feedback (ritorno corporeo), che si compone di un’immagine complessa, diversa, scomposta e ibrida. Proprio in questa fase di riconfigurazione nasce la condizione del metrocorpo. Esso funziona come filtro-immagine tra il nostro corpo che inserito in uno spazio virtuale riconfigura la sua realtà corporea. L’arte ha da tempo rimesso in discussione il suo statuto in rapporto con la tecnologia e allo stesso tempo ha compreso la pregnanza di questa nuova e molteplice dimensione corporea. Dalla letteratura sci-fi di Ballard, al cinema di Cronenberg, dal Corpo senza Organi (CsO) di Artaud attualizzato da Deleuze, alla Body Art, dalle pratiche estetiche bio-politiche attuate da Orlan, alle contaminazioni tecnologiche della carne di Stelarc, fino alla realtà virtuale di Jaron Lanier; gli artisti hanno indagato, con mezzi plurali e inediti, il significato di questa nuova dimensione esistenziale, costruendo meta-narrazioni del corpo e identità mutanti. L’estetica, in quanto scienza della conoscenza sensibile, deve tener conto di questa nuova realtà sociale e artistica, e per analizzarla, deve anch’essa contaminarsi con l’utilizzo dell’antropologia, della psicologia, della semiotica e delle scienze naturali. La nuova estetica non possiede più uno spazio delimitato, ma si muove attraverso corpi che fluttuano nei piani de-territorializzati di un’umanità in connessione. Lo scopo del mio lavoro di ricerca è duplice. Da un lato indagherò a fondo le modalità con cui avviene questo “rimodellamento” della disciplina che veste un nuovo abito. L’attuale travestimento dell‘estetica potrebbe richiedere l’utilizzo del touch-screen. Quest’ultimo termine conduce il filosofo a “toccare” la disciplina e i suoi strumenti in relazione al corpo, in quanto contenitore di significati simbolici che interagiscono e si contaminano con e attraverso i meccanismi di connessione e ibridazione con la macchina digitale e le sue applicazioni. Dall’altro lato della ricerca, invece, tenterò di analizzare in che modo questa neo-estetica, contaminata e fluttuante, riesca ad illuminare una nuova multi-identità. L’immagine del metrocorpo, a questo punto, si è dotata di un possibile senso, prefigurando nuove riconfigurazioni corporee. Per far questo, mi servirò prima di tutto delle ricerche di alcuni filosofi, come delle distinzioni corporee di Husserl, fino alla revisione fenomenologica della carne di Merleau-Ponty, per poi attraversare l’impostazione rizomatica dell’organismo e la fascinazione della viande in Deleuze. Come seconda modalità d’indagine, impegnerò i teorici e gli artisti performativi che hanno riflettuto e interpretato la condizione del corpo contemporaneo, dai performer del digital art a quelli dei new media art. In questa ultima fase di ricerca proverò a fornire alcuni esempi concreti per finalizzare il concetto di metrocorpo. Per far questo, tenterò di osservare e applicare una ricerca etnografica sia sulle arti digitali che sulle azioni performative, che riflettano sull’uso del corpo in rapporto alla tecnologia. Analizzerò prima di tutto i diversi Festival d’arte contemporanea sia a livello nazionale che internazionale, allo stesso tempo, tenterò di studiare e fornire qualche esempio di applicazione protesica o impiantistica nel settore medico, dove la tecnologia e medicina si completano per una nuova antropologia medica. La contemporaneità a questo punto gioca la sfida della complessità, mentre il metrocorpo filtra una nuova condizione corporea tra lo spazio reale e quello virtuale e l’estetica si trova a partecipare attivamente e trans-disciplinarmente ad una nuova narrazione. Una nuova estetica della transizione (transestetica) verso il digitale è possibile, essa fluttua attraverso corpi ibridi in uno spazio digitale.\ud \u

Connecticity, Augmented Perception of the City + Interview, Statement, Artwork

We constantly re-interpret and transform the spaces around us.The ways in which we constantly personalize the spaces which we traverse and in which we perform our daily routines communicate information about emotions, knowledge, skills, methodologies, cultures and desires.This process takes place in digital realms as well, which start to ubiquitously merge with cities.Mobile devices, smartphones, wearables, digital tags, near field communication devices, location based services and mixed/augmented reality have turned the world into an essentially read/write, ubiquitous publishing surface.The usage of mobile devices and ubiquitous technologies alters the understanding of place.In our research, we investigated the possibilities to conceptualize, design and implement a series of usage scenarios, moving fluidly across arts, sciences and the practices of city governance and community design.The objective we set forth sees the creation of multiple, stratified narratives onto the city, set in place by citizens, organizations and administrations

Not here not there (part 1)

This is an edited volume and a catalog with a series of essay that (following two exhibitions titled Not Here in the Samek art gallery Lewisburg, PA, USA and Not There in Kasa Gallery - Istanbul, Turkey) that focuses on augmented reality art. This is the first academic collection of essays and survey of artworks in the field. This LEA publication has a simple goal: surveying the current trends in augmented reality artistic interventions. There is no other substantive academic collection currently available, and it is with a certain pride that LEA presents this volume which provides a snapshot of current trends as well as a moment of reflection on the future of AR interventions. Volume Editors: Lanfranco Aceti and Richard Rinehart. Editors: Ozden Sahin, Jonathan Munro and Catherine M. Weir. Contributors Not Here, Not There: An Analysis Of An International Collaboration To Survey Augmented Reality Art Editorial by Lanfranco Aceti Site, Non-site, and Website Introduction by Richard Rinehart The Variable Museum: Off-Topic Art Interview, Statement, Artwork by John Bell Translocated Boundaries Interview, Statement, Artwork by Jacob Garbe In Between: Experiencing Liminality Interview, Statement, Artwork by Dragos Gheorghiu & Livia Stefan Hacking: A New Political and Cultural Practice by Christina Grammatikopoulou Connecticity, Augmented Perception of the City Interview, Statement, Artwork by Salvatore Iaconesi & Oriana Persico Augmented Resistance: The Possibilities for AR and Data Driven Art Interview, Statement, Artwork by Conor McGarrigle Situated Soundscapes: Redefining Media Art and the Urban Experience Interview, Statement, Artwork by Natasa Paterson & Fionnuala Conway A New Relic Emerges: Image as Subject to Object Interview, Statement, Artwork by Rebecca Peel Re-Visualizing Afghanistan in “what if im the bad guy”: Using Palimpsest to Create an AR Documentary Interview, Statement, Artwork by Aaron A. Reed & Phoenix Toew