Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 77, Issue 7
Alan, For me, inequality in access is a recurring concern. I think that AR is appealing because it formalizes folk practices. I think the poor man's (or woman's) AR can be seen in virtually any bathroom stall, bus stop, high school desktop, etc.: graffiti. But even graffiti is a material representation of consciousness, directing thought towards another. The iphone offers the ability to apply narrative and interpretation to space in the same way that graffiti and storytelling do but where it might differ is in the personal stakes for the writer, the permanence of the writing, and in the reading public that it engages. Writing in public space immediately puts the writer into dialogue with the other inhabitants of that space. Various AR apps engage a narrower slice of the public, which calls into question the notion of the public at all, but which is also why they are permitted. Hacker attacks on websites are also AR applications, but like graffiti, they are considered criminal as opposed to merely fun. At the same time, I think most people want to be a part of culture and society in this neoliberal era so simulated folk practices are incredibly appealing. I think the test is how to push our way from simulated practices into the real. Davin On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 12:12 AM, Alan Sondheim sondh...@panix.com wrote: I was fascinated by the link Paul Brown sent in, http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/04/new-augmented-reality-app-unle.html - because of the creativity unleashed; the iphone, whatever, becomes an active tool instead of a receiver. I have two questions, occasioned in part by my relative poverty in relation to this discussion (I can't see my own pieces!) - 1 - What, if anything is being done to eliminate the various headgear or even smartphone receivers that are current necessary to receive AR and its extensions? The last issue of Lusitania, Beyond Form, Architecture and Art in the Space of Media, focuses on the physico-inert-kinetic constructs of situated responsive liquid architectures, some of which have been realized. But even these require an over-emphasis on things. I was taken in this regard by Newstweek which runs interference on a wide variety of platforms, augmenting inscription. 2 - A vast number of people already carry smartphones etc., constantly use them on the move (too many walks/hikes with people staring at the screens etc.); for them, the media environment is already amalgamated, physical reality already augmented simply by the presence of the screen. So there's an enclave set up in the midst of the practico-inert, one occasioned by surplus income, local/technological accesspoints, etc. The second question is related to the first and my previous post - what can be done to extend this, breakdown the enclave? The uses are tremendous - think of a device that might be employed around Fukushima, directly outlining radiation levels as AR. This would have application for all sorts of pollutions; one might use it in a firefight, for example, in order to avoid oncoming. Sorry, I'm writing blurrily at the moment. ... What I'm asking - how does one break the enclave - the sense of privilege AR implies - how does one make the creative version of the $100 or $10 laptop here? Why is this important? It's not in a lot of places, but in the US at this point, 1% of the country owns 95-99% of the wealth (depending on the stats) and the relative income of the poor is decreasing quickly: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110408/ts_yblog_thelookout/off-the-charts-income-gains-for-super-rich and http://l.yimg.com/a/i/ww/news/2011/04/08/inequality.jpg - these are people who would socially benefit from AR, and yet it's totally out of reach. I might add that the elderly obviously fall into this category as well, etc. So is there a way for AR to reach out? Is there a technology that doesn't require technology? Or an AR-technological equivalent, say, of the old Bread-and-Puppet Theater? Finally I want to thank everyone for an fascinating discussion, and it's really heartening to see so much amazing work, so many directions! I particularly want to thank Patrick here, and Mark Skwarek, who has nurtured me to some extent. - Alan == email archive http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/ webpage http://www.alansondheim.org music archive: http://www.espdisk.com/alansondheim/ current text http://www.alansondheim.org/qy.txt == ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 77, Issue 7
Hi All, In reading Alan's post, specifically his questions how does one break the enclave - the sense of privilege AR implies and Is there a technology that doesn't require technology -- I immediately thought about a project that I posted on Networked_Performance (http://turbulence.org/blog/2011/04/09/these-walls-could-talk/) yesterday: These Walls Could Talk. The author of the call for participation, George Bixby, wrote: These Walls Could Talk is an attempt to reinterpret the historical narratives found in our history museums, through alternative audio-tours of the the American Museum of Natural History. These original audio-pieces are inspired by specific dioramas in the Culture Halls of the museum. These halls contain depictions of people throughout history and from around the world. However, as the “cultures” which they purport to represent continue to change, the dioramas remain static. These Walls Could Talk is a collaboration in which contributors from diverse backgrounds give new voices to these characters through approaches including fiction, auto-biography and archival sound. I was drawn to the project because it involves dioramas -- an old 3-D technology that is meant to transport us to an other time, place, and /or culture -- and because it's one of the few AR projects I've come across recently that superimposes an alternate narrative in sound rather than in images. Dioramas and audio recordings are old technologies that may or may not break the enclave: that is, museums are a privileged spaces and, despite the ubiquity of audio recording devices, many still do not have access to them. Thus, the smartphone enclave is one amongst many when it comes to AR. Warm Regards, Jo On Apr 10, 2011, at 12:12 AM, Alan Sondheim wrote: I was fascinated by the link Paul Brown sent in, http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/04/new-augmented-reality-app-unle.html - because of the creativity unleashed; the iphone, whatever, becomes an active tool instead of a receiver. I have two questions, occasioned in part by my relative poverty in relation to this discussion (I can't see my own pieces!) - 1 - What, if anything is being done to eliminate the various headgear or even smartphone receivers that are current necessary to receive AR and its extensions? The last issue of Lusitania, Beyond Form, Architecture and Art in the Space of Media, focuses on the physico-inert-kinetic constructs of situated responsive liquid architectures, some of which have been realized. But even these require an over-emphasis on things. I was taken in this regard by Newstweek which runs interference on a wide variety of platforms, augmenting inscription. 2 - A vast number of people already carry smartphones etc., constantly use them on the move (too many walks/hikes with people staring at the screens etc.); for them, the media environment is already amalgamated, physical reality already augmented simply by the presence of the screen. So there's an enclave set up in the midst of the practico-inert, one occasioned by surplus income, local/technological accesspoints, etc. The second question is related to the first and my previous post - what can be done to extend this, breakdown the enclave? The uses are tremendous - think of a device that might be employed around Fukushima, directly outlining radiation levels as AR. This would have application for all sorts of pollutions; one might use it in a firefight, for example, in order to avoid oncoming. Sorry, I'm writing blurrily at the moment. ... What I'm asking - how does one break the enclave - the sense of privilege AR implies - how does one make the creative version of the $100 or $10 laptop here? Why is this important? It's not in a lot of places, but in the US at this point, 1% of the country owns 95-99% of the wealth (depending on the stats) and the relative income of the poor is decreasing quickly: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110408/ts_yblog_thelookout/off-the-charts-income-gains-for-super-rich and http://l.yimg.com/a/i/ww/news/2011/04/08/inequality.jpg - these are people who would socially benefit from AR, and yet it's totally out of reach. I might add that the elderly obviously fall into this category as well, etc. So is there a way for AR to reach out? Is there a technology that doesn't require technology? Or an AR-technological equivalent, say, of the old Bread-and-Puppet Theater? Finally I want to thank everyone for an fascinating discussion, and it's really heartening to see so much amazing work, so many directions! I particularly want to thank Patrick here, and Mark Skwarek, who has nurtured me to some extent. - Alan == email archive http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/ webpage http://www.alansondheim.org music archive: http://www.espdisk.com/alansondheim/ current text http://www.alansondheim.org/qy.txt ==
Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 77, Issue 7
If we want to extend this enclave, we need to devise ways of making AR work on low-spec mobile phones. Smartphones may still be the purvey of the wealthy, but the vast majority of people in this world own some form of mobile phone. (I've read accounts by cultural anthropologist Jan Chipchase of visits to remote villages in the developing world with no running water, mains electricity, or phone landlines, where locals still owned and operated mobile phones over Edge networks.) (The limited penetration of smartphones will, however, probably change once plentiful cheap Android-powered shanzai smartphones are available outside of China. Shanzai is the Chinese term for domestic copies of foreign technology, generally created at a fraction of the cost of the original.) So, how might we make AR that worked on a phone with no Internet connection, limited screen architecture, low computing power and a low-spec camera? Well, first of all we'd probably need to abandon image recognition based AR, and focus on the locative. Obviously, it would be ideal if the devices we were working with had GPS, but even without that some form of device location could be accomplished via phone tower triangulation. In addition to this, we would always have another dimension that could be used to trigger AR - time. We can safely assume, after all, that every mobile phone in the world has clock. And what if we have no camera and the screen can only deliver text? Well, Newstweek shows what can still be done with content that is largely text based (even if it is delivered as HTML and contains embedded imagery). Which brings me to the question of how to deal with the lack of an Internet connection if we wish to deliver dynamically changing content. Well, this issue is currently being confronted by innovators working with what they call the other four billion phone users (ie people with access to mobile but no Internet). In that sector, sophisticated social networking platforms have been created based solely on SMS and interactive voice response systems. (If we are delivering content that is static and can be bundled up with an app that is installed on the phone, then we may not need to worry about the issue of subsequent connectivity at all.) And IVRs take me on to my final point. Even without cameras or graphics capable screens, we can still deliver compelling, richly informative and immersive experiences to users with sound. Even low-spec phones these days have headphone jacks and support for the playback of some sound file format. (Side note: On visits to Saharan villages without mobile phone reception, ethno-musicologist Christopher Kirkley came across people who owned mobile phones that were being used primarily for this purpose - as personal stereos.) All of this has probably taken me a million miles away from the usual definitions and conceptions of augmented reality and naturally opened me up to accusations that I'm no longer taking about AR at all, but if we think of augmented reality more broadly as methods of intervention in the virtual overlaying of information on our world by our devices, then we can start thinking of techniques that might work meaningfully even where the available technology is highly limited. Warren Armstrong On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 2:12 PM, Alan Sondheim sondh...@panix.com wrote: I was fascinated by the link Paul Brown sent in, http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/04/new-augmented-reality-app-unle.html - because of the creativity unleashed; the iphone, whatever, becomes an active tool instead of a receiver. I have two questions, occasioned in part by my relative poverty in relation to this discussion (I can't see my own pieces!) - 1 - What, if anything is being done to eliminate the various headgear or even smartphone receivers that are current necessary to receive AR and its extensions? The last issue of Lusitania, Beyond Form, Architecture and Art in the Space of Media, focuses on the physico-inert-kinetic constructs of situated responsive liquid architectures, some of which have been realized. But even these require an over-emphasis on things. I was taken in this regard by Newstweek which runs interference on a wide variety of platforms, augmenting inscription. 2 - A vast number of people already carry smartphones etc., constantly use them on the move (too many walks/hikes with people staring at the screens etc.); for them, the media environment is already amalgamated, physical reality already augmented simply by the presence of the screen. So there's an enclave set up in the midst of the practico-inert, one occasioned by surplus income, local/technological accesspoints, etc. The second question is related to the first and my previous post - what can be done to extend this, breakdown the enclave? The uses are tremendous - think of a device that might be employed around Fukushima, directly outlining radiation levels as AR. This would have application
Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 77, Issue 7
I read somewhere recently (probably the Guardian) that iPhone and other smartphone owners tend not to be high percentile earners and are amongst the most in debt sector of the population. A case of people spending money they do not have on things they do not need. Best Simon On 11/04/2011 01:37, Warren Armstrong filmcem...@gmail.com wrote: Smartphones may still be the purvey of the wealthy Simon Biggs si...@littlepig.org.uk http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ s.bi...@eca.ac.uk http://www.elmcip.net/ http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201 ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 77, Issue 7
I was fascinated by the link Paul Brown sent in, http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/04/new-augmented-reality-app-unle.html - because of the creativity unleashed; the iphone, whatever, becomes an active tool instead of a receiver. I have two questions, occasioned in part by my relative poverty in relation to this discussion (I can't see my own pieces!) - 1 - What, if anything is being done to eliminate the various headgear or even smartphone receivers that are current necessary to receive AR and its extensions? The last issue of Lusitania, Beyond Form, Architecture and Art in the Space of Media, focuses on the physico-inert-kinetic constructs of situated responsive liquid architectures, some of which have been realized. But even these require an over-emphasis on things. I was taken in this regard by Newstweek which runs interference on a wide variety of platforms, augmenting inscription. 2 - A vast number of people already carry smartphones etc., constantly use them on the move (too many walks/hikes with people staring at the screens etc.); for them, the media environment is already amalgamated, physical reality already augmented simply by the presence of the screen. So there's an enclave set up in the midst of the practico-inert, one occasioned by surplus income, local/technological accesspoints, etc. The second question is related to the first and my previous post - what can be done to extend this, breakdown the enclave? The uses are tremendous - think of a device that might be employed around Fukushima, directly outlining radiation levels as AR. This would have application for all sorts of pollutions; one might use it in a firefight, for example, in order to avoid oncoming. Sorry, I'm writing blurrily at the moment. ... What I'm asking - how does one break the enclave - the sense of privilege AR implies - how does one make the creative version of the $100 or $10 laptop here? Why is this important? It's not in a lot of places, but in the US at this point, 1% of the country owns 95-99% of the wealth (depending on the stats) and the relative income of the poor is decreasing quickly: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110408/ts_yblog_thelookout/off-the-charts-income-gains-for-super-rich and http://l.yimg.com/a/i/ww/news/2011/04/08/inequality.jpg - these are people who would socially benefit from AR, and yet it's totally out of reach. I might add that the elderly obviously fall into this category as well, etc. So is there a way for AR to reach out? Is there a technology that doesn't require technology? Or an AR-technological equivalent, say, of the old Bread-and-Puppet Theater? Finally I want to thank everyone for an fascinating discussion, and it's really heartening to see so much amazing work, so many directions! I particularly want to thank Patrick here, and Mark Skwarek, who has nurtured me to some extent. - Alan == email archive http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/ webpage http://www.alansondheim.org music archive: http://www.espdisk.com/alansondheim/ current text http://www.alansondheim.org/qy.txt == ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 77, Issue 7
Nice work REFF. Please see http://virtaflaneurazine.wordpress.com/virta-flaneurazine/ for more drug induced reinvention of reality. On Apr 9, 2011, at Sat, Apr 9, 10:00 PM, empyre-requ...@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au wrote: When we happily met Patrick in Rome, we went for a shopdropping run in which we placed a series of boxes of an Augmented Reality Drug beside ordinary products in the shop. John Craig Freeman Associate Professor of New Media Emerson College Department of Visual and Media Arts 120 Boylston Street Boston, MA 02116-4624 (617) 824-8862 john_craig_free...@emerson.edu http://JohnCraigFreeman.net ___ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
