Plein Air
The City of London: augmented reality installation, screenshots from iPhone
Naked, Bullfighter and Beggar
Security
Tout
Tout, Bullfighter and Naked
Dealer
Bucketman
Security
Worker
Naked
on May 14, 2011 Posted by: johngoto in AR Gilt City
Hybrid History
Nancy - I thought this picture might be of interest in relation to your post about Courbet's anachronistic notion of history (strangely both realist and allegorical - like some types of digital photography). The conservationist here attempts to preserve the fabric of 'The Painter's Studio' from the metronomic pounding of material time. Whenever in Paris I revisit it to check out its bitumen shadows, the canvas seams and its sheer expanse. And so I remind myself that it has another life, beyond that of the unconscious.
Courbet's 'Stone Breakers' is in fact more a specter, incinerated by the allied bombing of Dresden. And yet it lacks the dreamlike sense of history which makes ‘The Painter’s Studio’ so much of our times.
on May 09, 2011 Posted by: johngoto in AR Gilt City
Plan A
Here is Plan A. We are prioritising a viewpoint, which is beside Wellington's statue on Mansion House Place. Because of the radial arrangement, overlapping images will not occur.
It will be interesting to experience the power relations implied by this central viewpoint. In theatre design the central seat was reserved for the King; in panopticon prison design the omniscient observer; and in games design the gamer. Here there will be alternative, multi-faceted and layered renderings offered from other viewing positions.
If the circumference is too small, then Plan B is to situate the piece around Jubilee Park at Canary Wharf.
on May 09, 2011 Posted by: johngoto in AR Gilt City
Can AR Survive the Hype?
In the last installment of the infamous Hype Cycle of Emerging Technologies produced by Gartner, Augmented Reality was nearing the peak of hype, soon to plummet, as it fails to meet people's high expectations - and is still 5-10 years away from mainstream adoption.
Of course it's a source of much debate; and anyone with an interest in technology will disagree with some of the points. In terms of augmented reality I think that they're both right and wrong - in that the point needs to be split into two.
In 2003 when the University of Sydney produced the ARPhone concept, the only way to create augmented reality on a mobile device was to use a nearby PC to do the complex processing. 1 year later the first version of the ARToolkit allowed AR on a mobile device at 4-5 frames per second.
It took seven more years, but with the arrival of the Nintendo 3DS there is now a consumer electronics device launched with Augmented Reality firmly in mind. I recently got a chance to try it out and was impressed by the quality. The consumer gluttony of this coming Christmas will likely see both the release of AR game and masses of 3DS's shipped.
The smartphone market has also seen an explosion of AR apps in recent times. They certainly have the required hardware, but a limiting factor seems to be a lack of software libraries/platforms. Layar is helping in that respect, but there's room for more.
However, when Augmented Reality was imagined, it was for things like overlaying medical scans on patients, viewing piping and wiring schematics en-situ in buildings, and showing blue-print layouts in complex manufacturing tasks. For these applications there are fundamental challenges that remain unsolved, and are, if anything, more than 10 years away.
on May 07, 2011 Posted by: matthewleach in AR Gilt City
A March to the Bank
A March to the Bank by James Gillray, 1787
This image is commonly said to be Gillray’s protest against the considerable nuisance caused to pedestrians by a detachment of guards, known as the Bank Piquet, as it marched daily to the Bank of England.
The Piquet was formed in response to an attack on the Bank by a mob during the Gordon Riots of 1780. Soldiers’ shot on the rioters and a number were killed outside the Bank. Read in this context, Gillray’s satire can be thought to show the defenders of privilege and wealth, trampling the poor.
on May 03, 2011 Posted by: johngoto in AR Gilt City
Façade-Job
The drastic architectural practice of reconstruction within retained facades took off in the City in the 1980s, as a way of getting round preservation orders on buildings (see Nikolaus Pevsner & Simon Bradley (1997) London1: The City of London from The Buildings of England series, published by Penguin Books, London).
An earlier example of this same approach is provided by Sir Herbert Baker’s reconstruction (1921-39) of John Soane’s architectural masterpiece The Bank of England. The building was gutted in what Pevsner described as "the greatest architectural crime, in the City of London, of the twentieth century". Only parts of Soane’s boundary wall now remain.
on May 02, 2011 Posted by: johngoto in AR Gilt City
Augmented Reality: some precedents
We have been thinking about visual effects that preceded Augmented Reality: those in which images appear ‘before your eyes’, superimposed onto the real-time actual world. Any further suggestions would be appreciated.
Filippo Brunallaschi's Pinhole Perspective Device.
An exact copy of the Baptistery of San Giovanni was painted onto a panel of burnished silver into which a small viewing hole was cut. Standing just inside the adjacent Cathedral, looking towards the Baptistery, a mirror was raised replacing the actual building with the reflection of the painted one. The silver substrata reflected the actual clouds in real time.
(We are indebted to Paul Greco for suggesting this link to AR).
Phantasmagoria
The phantasmagoric effect was developed in C18 French theatre, and involved images projected by modified magic lanterns onto smoke or semi-transparent screens. The use of multiple projectors, sometimes mounted on tracks, allowed for dynamic traveling and zooming effects, which when set against real actors and objects caused great astonishment.
Walter Benjamin compared the experience of the modern city and commodity culture to that of phantasmagoria.
Pepper’s Ghost
Using real actors, mirrors and glass sheets, chemist John Henry Pepper successfully adapted Henry Dircks’ phantasmagoria for the London stage in 1862, to produce spectacular ghost effects.
Musion Eyeliner
Musion Eyeliner is a modern variant on Pepper’s Ghost which uses high definition video projection or LED screens to allow moving images to appear within a live stage setting. At the 2006 Grammy Awards, Madonna performed with virtual band Gorillaz using Musion 3D holographic projection mixed with live performance. In the first part of this video, her image is projected, then actual.
Mattes
Bob Scifo’s matte for The Seventh Sign (1988)
Torn Curtain glass matte by Albert Whitlock (see more) which is 90% painted
At its simplest a matte in cinematography is a landscape or architectural interior painted onto a sheet of glass hung before the lens, through which a live action scene is shot. The combined image has the appearance of a continuous space. We intend to research further this interesting technique, which surely has connections with Brunelleschi’s pinhole perspective device?
Telescopes
Modern versions of seaside telescopes sometimes incorporate AR technology. This particular project by ARGUI allows you to simultaneously see the exterior and interior of a building.
on Apr 25, 2011 Posted by: johngoto in AR Gilt City
Gordon Brown
Brown’s final speech as Chancellor of the Exchequer at the annual Mansion House Dinner in June 2007 celebrated ‘ London’s position…not only as the international financial centre of the world but of global pre-eminence’ and congratulated himself for avoiding ‘a regulatory crackdown’ after the financial bust at the beginning of the decade.
A. Callinicos, Bonfire of Illusions (Cambridge 2010), p. 76
on Apr 24, 2011 Posted by: johngoto in AR Gilt City