Beyond Locative Media Reading

In the reading "Beyond Locative Media" there was a lot of focus on commercial interests, locative media would focuses on location based work and the experience of an individual user. With the pervasiveness of computing and the cheap availability of smart phones, the ability to track tag or annotate people, place, and things with digital information is no longer restricted to the web. It states that the virtual based world is on its way to becoming anchored into the real world and having a real basis in the real world. locative medias use of technology as part of it's frame work there has been far less separation.

Artist develop a practice that in many ways is research and profiling. For instance Walt Disney Smilarly to Pixar create short animated films to test out new technologies and new techniques before trying those techniques in full length films. It is a way for trial and error as well as practice before they can realy get their feet under them.  This is precisely what we are seeing with technologies now such as locative media and augmented reality.  We are just playing right now and sampling the technology but once we get our feet under us we will reach a new era in art and technology. Currently we are still dealing with glitchy platforms which turn many away from using them, specially in a era where we are all about efficiency and ease of use. If its to complicated and has to many issues it will die before it even has a chance to get going.

Layar

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My Layar Project was done with Mr. Brian Machado, and what we did was place a Mario Mushroom in the center of campus at the Cesar Chavez Plaza.  We had some difficulty in the placement of the item, we placed it a few feet above the standard elevation so that it wouldnt get stuck in the ground.  This worked however our item got lost in another classmates forest which btw was very impressive.  We attempted to move it but the website for Layar was crashed by our classes continuous use of the network and the multiple layar levels. All in all the Layar project was an interesting experiment and was enjoyable to see the other classmates projects but overall the experience left me feeling that it would not be something i would want to try again until the bugs were worked out.

Paper on Augmented Reality

Augmented reality can change the way we view the world, and is going to become a major aspect of our future. With augmented-reality displays, which will eventually look much like a normal pair of glasses, informative graphics will appear in your field of view, and audio will coincide with whatever you see similar to how we viewed the San Francisco on our guided buggy tour.  Instead of just seeing the natural landscape like we did and heard slight advertisements for restaurants and shops along the way, we will see a virtual guide in the dashboard of our buggy pointing out everything. Instead of being instructed to look somewhere we might be assisted with arrows, and instead of commercial advertisements like on the radio we might see something more like a pop up on a computer. These enhancements will be refreshed continually to reflect the movements of your head. Similar devices and applications already exist, particularly on smartphones like the iPhone.

            Let’s say you're hungry and at a busy intersection. There are multiple restaurants around you, but you don't know where they are or which one is the best. You could look up each one on a computer, or just take your chances by holding up your phone to buildings around you and seeing comments about those places pop up as you turn. Another example is shopping. You can point your camera at a product and see a layer of information about it, like prices of the same product at other stores in the area or on the Internet and see customer reviews and comments. And this functionality only requires a few things. First, a smartphone with a camera to capture reality. Second, a connection to the Internet for receiving the layer of information. Third, software on your phone to bring it all together. It also helps to have a phone with GPS and a compass so it knows which direction you're facing.   Soon our reality will become so integrated with technology that we will all put on glasses not just for sun protection but to see a more enriched world.  A world where you can see impossible things pop up around you.

            My favorite example is of an augmented reality for gps.  There will be programs created so that you don’t have to look at your phones for directions instead you will hear the directions like we do today and the path will be highlighted in front of you so that you don’t take the wrong exit or miss it because you needed to look down at your phone. Something that exists now is located inside inoventions at Disneyland in Anaheim Ca. You are tasked to be a doctor and reassemble a human being, so by putting on these glasses and grabbing a joy stick you grab body parts from a conveyer belt and assemble the person accordingly. 

Computer graphics have become much more sophisticated since in the early 1970s.  Game graphics are pushing the barriers of photorealism. Now, researchers and engineers are pulling graphics out of your television screen or computer display and integrating them into real-world environments.

On the spectrum between virtual reality, which creates immersive, computer-generated environments, and the real world, augmented reality is closer to the real world. Augmented reality adds graphics, sounds, haptic feedback and smell to the natural world as it exists. Both video games and cell phones are driving the development of augmented reality either for fun uses like placing a giant Reptar on the empire state building or for practical Uses. Everyone from tourists, to soldiers, to someone looking for the closest subway stop can now benefit from the ability to place computer-generated graphics in their field of vision.

            Lastly its uses in learning for children would be extremely advantageous. In a time where the average childs attention span is the span of a few seconds we need to come up with new ways to keep their attention. There are books out now that tell stories like old pop up books but with animations. The story of jack and the bean stock comes to life on the page and you see the characters move along with the story as you read. Also in science they recreated a volcano so you can see into it and all the layers of crust that make up the volcano. As you read you can see the reaction on the inside and watch the monstrous mt. erupt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKw_Mp5YkaE

Bibliography

   http://jamesalliban.wordpress.com/

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videoplace

   http://www.hiddenltd.com/what-we-do/augmented-reality

   http://web.media.mit.edu/~cati/

Artists in Locative

When researching locative media artists i was immediately drawn to Jan Schacher. Their work focused on “audiovisual space set in a Platonic body, a regular geometrical space. Surround-sound, video projection and interaction create an immersive media experience. A touch-sensitive interface offers an intuitive, contemplative interaction with swarms of sounds”.  The piece i really enjoyed the most was Flowspace 2.  The piece focused on motion graphics and a interactive touch surface that responds to movement.

Words from the artist:
My piece consists of three layers: the swarm simulation with it’s own visualisation on the touch surface, the main visualisation that is projected overhead and the sound engine that outputs spatialised audio to the 20 speakers in the dodecahedron. The swarm simulation is made with the ISO-libraries by D.Bisig. The visualisation, which also contains the entire logic for the piece, was coded in openFrameworks. The sound-engine runs in MaxMSP using my ambisonic tools from ICST.

LINKS

http://www.locative-media.org/projects/C83/ ‘Scape the Hood Project

http://www.soundwalk.com/#/TOURS/littleitaly/ Little Italy Soundwalk audio sample

http://www.soundwalk.com/ Audio tours for people who don’t like audio tours

http://www.terirueb.net/i_index.html  Artist Teri Rueb 

http://www.locative-media.org/ Locative Media 101

My Wandering

I run a path every morning and it is not always the same but i end up in a grove every time.  In my derive i wanted to try and follow my nose instead of my eyes and see what would happen.  I started my venture at 7 p.m turning left at my house. I came to this decision by closing my eyes and taking in a few deep breaths finding a smell of burning wood and fire. My next turn was due more to sound than smell which was unexpected but i stumbled across the park i normally run through, however it was over run with girls and boys out at soccer practice. I avoided the fields and stopped think for a moment and realized my feet took me the same route i always run. It was odd that the moment i stopped thinking about the task at hand my body continued without me thinking about it.  I ended up at the Grove and stopped again to smell the air and discovered a unique smell i can only describe as crushed grapes.  To the left of the Grove is a large amount of vineyards that i started running along when i discovered a break in the fence that had no barb wire and decided to enter. Upon entering i noticed a smell of fresh turned dirt and found recent construction  taking place to plant more crops.  I followed that smell till i found some olive trees that were very strategically placed in rows up a hill to the entry gate.  Once i hopped the fence outward i had to choose a direction at an intersection and could not pick out a defiant scent. I could smell the exhaust from passing cars and the cool air of night setting in as the sun set but nothing that gave me directions so i followed the flow of cars along a dirt trail. I then smelt FOOD! and took yet another short cut through more Vineyards to find the lovely smell of BBQ MEATS!  I came across a destroyed building that looked like it used to be very nice and the only thing remaining were the stone walls and empty spaces where the windows used to be.  In that same place happened to be a wedding rehearsal dinner that i definitely was not supposed to be in yet i pressed forward and hopped another fence to avoid awkward glances. I followed a couple more scents including trees and plants on my run but ended up following food and fire smells back to my home to conclude my venture.

wandering

For my derive i have considered many places i wonder which are mainly outside of the city. I enjoy wandering in nature avoiding people and connecting with myself.  Recently during my runs i have started to smell different scents in the air.  Mostly fire places and fresh trees. For my derive i wanted to try and run my normal route around my home and try and follow the smells to see how well i could track them. once i find one i will move toward the next one which might prove difficult since the closer to a smell you are the more overbearing it is over the other smells. either that or just see where tracking the smell will take me. imagine if i was blind and could only travel by touch and smell. so running im going to ignore my eyes and follow my nose.

Geocars

Recently our class took a field trip to drive Geocars around San Francisco near fishermans warf. Here is a website about the company and some images i took of the adventure!

http://www.gocartours.com/

On this venture we embarked on three wheel model vehicles that is guided by gps to take you through different areas and landmarks of San Francisco.  The onboard computer speaks to you through the sound system in the car.  This trip took us through parts of Fishermans Warf and along the coast to the golden gate.  We made a pit stop at a beach which i quickly found out to be a nudist beach so we headed the other direction after dipping our feet in the water. Along the route the guided tour told us about points of interested outside of landmarks such as popular restaurants and places to shop. This is a very effective way to advertise new business's in the future through standard gps guided trips that we take on a daily basis.