Augmented Reality and Art

Now it is time to work on the final project. I would like to do something which mix-augmented reality with real thing. So I decided to loo around to see what has been done, and maybe get inspired.
Creative Space
We could say that this short movie is a kind of motion design sequence inspired by advertisement posters. The music created by Silencide, matches perfectly the performance, but I am not sure that we could call the all call an Augmented reality, as I believe that all those great effects were created in post-production, and not in real-time with some special tools. The colors used, the performances and the simple shapes does impress….I must say.

<div><object width=”420″ height=”339″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/x1fo00&#8243; /><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true” /><param name=”allowScriptAccess” value=”always” /><embed src=”http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/x1fo00&#8243; type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” width=”420″ height=”339″ allowFullScreen=”true” allowScriptAccess=”always”></embed></object><br /><b><a href=”http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/x1fo00″>Creative Space</a></b><br /><i>by <a href=”http://www.dailymotion.com/vjsigma6″>vjsigma6</a></i></div&gt;

http://www.sigma6.ch/73.html

Is it good or bad, but I do not seem to find any other artifact using Augmented reality. I do not think I will get any inspiration, new ideas this way. So I decided to start to shape my initial thoughts and go with the flow.

Anaglyph art

On my last etude I decided to go back in time, and test the illusion of the anaglyph. I remember in the early 80’s the movie Jaw was broadcast using anaglyph in our French national TV, and that was quite of an experience through the eyes of a kid. But now that I have been a grown up adult for quite a while now, I am wondering if I will get as much stunned as I used to be few years ago ☺.
Before trying some tutorial to create the etude’s object, I decided to look around to see if this kid of technique has been used in Art. Of course that has been used in movies and game as well, what about the kind of piece you will see in galleries?
Quite sad I could no found much in this direction, however I did found this…
www.squidsoup.org

Come Closer
Come Closer is a digital installation that combines technology and collaborative interaction in an immersive audiovisual experience. The piece explores the boundaries of personal space, and allows visitors to interact and play with it. The projection is an abstract vision, a reflection of real space in a parallel world in virtual space showing each person as they move. The closer the people are getting the stronger the connection appear. The user started to use their body much more like an instrument in an artistic and collaborative way.

http://www.squidsoup.org/comecloser/

Drifnet

“Imagine flying like a bird through a musical composition that surrounds you, immerses you and reacts to your presence”
Drifnet is a convergence of two ideas.
• Fling like a bird
• Navigating through a virtual space, a musical environment
Just like a bird by moving their arms, the viewer can instinctively fly in virtual space. Here again this installation allow the user to play with his/her boy in a very artistic and aesthetic way.

this 2 pieces are from the squidsoup

http://www.squidsoup.org/driftnet/

What can we not do with the wii……

Johnny Chung Lee

Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays using the Wii Remote
This is amazing, ok it is not really art, but that could become art. I am running out of time, so unfortunately I will not get into it now, but I think that is something to keep in mind.
Using the wii remote connected to your pc and the infrared bar (connected to the wii console or else to power it), with a touch of programming, you can accurately track the location of your head and render view dependent images on the screen

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/

Light Sculptures

Light sculpture using video mapping

Artist and VJ Joanie Lemercier produced this attractive light sculpture. The effects look striking, the way the light is used, is indeed very witty, especially the balance between the graphics and color against the shadows and angles of the shapes themselves. . This piece is quite similar to the project made Pablo Valbuena. I believe the video mapping has been done with some application such as vvvv.

http://createdigitalmotion.com/tag/3d/page/2/

Augmented reality Sculpture

I found this very interesting project by Pablo Valbuena. This artifact mixing a physical volumetric base (which is used as a support), with a virtual projected layer that allows controlling the transformation in space-time.” this creates wildly changing ‘shadows’ and contour lines that can be altered on the fly as a living artwork.

http://www.pablovalbuena.com/

Augmented Sculpture Project

I am getting quite disappointed by the lack of Art in augmented reality; we could certainly say that Game is Art. Of course it is but I am thinking, hoping to find something more conceptual. A virtual fountain by R. Mutt, for example. What a disappointment, most of the websites are about the application itself and papers/essays telling fabulations about how immersive the experienced could be.
After a intensive Google search I came across the augmented Sculpture project, made I believe in 2003.
Real sculpture, modeled in 3D and bring to life in an animated sequence. The concept of taking something real and transposed in a virtual world is very attractive. In a art point of view it would have been even more appealing if the physical sculpture was created by the artist and transferred to this virtual world.

http://www.hyperfun.org/App/ASP/FASP.html

Augmented reality & virtual juggling

The project was called convergence 1.0. This performance combined two very unusual components: Juggling and informatics. There is not just element, but instead became subjects and object of the all spectacle. I think we could summarize the concept by “ What would be left of the juggling if we take away the balls?
The performance has been created in 2004. The main researches were based on the art of the movement around the juggling, and using digital as a tool. I was really absorb by the all performance, I have to say I have never paid attention in juggling before, but now I found the idea extremely original, and controversially enough very innovative.

http://www.adrienm.net/spectacles/convergence/index.html

http://video.google.fr/videoplay?docid=-5259850890549529082&hl=fr

Augmented reality

Augmented reality and Art

Is a very interesting field to play with? Imagine a digital sculpture popping out in you mobile phone’s screen.
I looked around to see what has been done with these tools. I came across the 3D painting. This has been made with one of the Augmented Reality Toolkit. That would be a very interesting to see this tool used in a similar way in a performance show. Cannot say anymore….I think this is an idea….maybe for our final show…

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/28/graffiti-artist-creates-real-time-3d-paintings/

Augmented reality is not very developed in Art as such (as far as I can see). However in the eventuality and possibility of a total immersion, augmented reality start to get very appealing in the game world. I came across this video, of a second Life avatar being materialized in our real world. Materialized is obviously not the right word, it is in a way still virtual, nevertheless if you were some video display glasses, I am pretty sure you think it’s right there in front of you.

In Pursuit of the Ultimate Augmented Reality Game

Top 10 augmented reality demos

This is just waow.
http://gamesalfresco.com/2008/03/04/top-10-augmented-reality-demos-that-will-revolutionize-video-games/

The Magic Book

In 2003 an amazing book has been put together with thanks to a close collaboration between artists and engineers. The “Magic Book” has been quite an innovation in the application of augmented reality technology to especially in learning/teaching process and in this case children’s literature.
This technology allows representation of still or animated sequences with sound tracks to appear “magically” in three dimensions.

http://www.hitlabnz.org/wiki/EyeMagic_Book

I found 2 Augmented Reality Tool Kits

ArToolKit

The first one is ArToolKit, which is fully available, and look amazing. I downloaded the Mac version and of course as usual I was getting some problems.
First with the camera, which I managed to fix by changing directory through the xcode tools. Unfortunately I was still getting an error message, which I believe was related to VRML renderer.

http://www.hitl.washington.edu/artoolkit/projects/

Artag

This one is easier to use but the Mac version is not complete. I sent an Email to one of the engineer to get the SDK version. No Reply./ However I did Have a go and play around changing data etc….It is a cool tool to use even as a demo to understand how it works.

I tried to have a Mermaid popping up. Well it is a bit white (I lost the texture, I did change the pathway on the Mti file, but still…. white). I believe the data were too heavy as I end up having faces flying away…However it does look like a…. fish of some kind. I will definitely look into it further for my final project.
The concept is very easy the webcam  “read” the tag, which is recognized by the application. The application is calling out a file which will have the information needed to link the tag to the 3d Object…Et Voila……
http://www.artag.net/

Visit to the Limehouse

Bronze is a very appealing material; it can be very smooth and will last forever. As I don’t know anything about sculpting, casting, molding, I decided to visit and learn from professional. This foundry uses one of the oldest techniques called Lost Wax. The lost wax process is a traditional method of casting bronze sculpture, which goes back in time to something like 5000 years. It is still used today in the casting of bronze sculpture because of the ability to achieve very fine detail and deep undercuts although more modern equipment and methods are used nowadays. This little guided tour was very interesting. Unfortunately it is not something I can do at home. I have to forget about lost wax techniques due to the price, time and skills required. However there are some other ways to get some very interesting result such as cold cast.

Work on progress.
http://www.bronzeage.co.uk/

Video: Lost Wax Bronze Casting

Cold Cast

This technique involves combining bronze powder with epoxy resin to produce a thick liquid, which is poured into a silicone mould. The result is generally quite impressive as well, but of course not as valuable

http://www.sculpturesinbronze.co.uk/methodology.html

Digital Sculpture

Bruce Beasley

Beasley is a recognize sculptor who uses 3 dimensional modeling to create his pieces. The digital tool allows him to work on the sculpture in a very spontaneous way, and accident can be save and developed in a very interesting manner.  I found some of his work very intense. The shapes used are generally very simple, but harmoniously put together. I am very keen on this kind of approach, using abstract geometric shapes with heavy concrete materials, such as bronze, aluminums…etc.

DAEDALUS
Cast Aluminum,1963

http://www.brucebeasley.com/home.htm

Corinne Whitaker

I have been looking into different Virtual and Digital sculpture’s forum, and this name kept pop in up.  I am desperately searching for her website (she must have one).
Here we go:
http://www.giraffe.com/

I felt very hard to find a female artist in the digital world. So it was quite endearing to find one in this field.  This artist creates sensuous and organic shape virtually and physically.   I really like the simplicity of the forms, and in the same time, you can feel a very strong touch of feminism.

http://www.sculpture.net/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/243

“There are those who feel that digital art is created by a machine. I suspect that the same discomfort was expressed about photography some 150 years ago. The computer is essentially a big dumb box with almost infinite potential. It takes the sensitivity of the artist to work magic with any tool, be it paintbrush, crayon or computer.” Corinne Whitaker
http://talentdevelop.com/interviews/Page1026.html

3D Sculpture

Dan Collins

When I heard the word 3d Sculpture, the imae wo crossed my mind was “Twister” by Dan Collins

Or should we say the 3Dman is one of the pioneers of 3D sculpture. I particularly loved one of his self-portrait called “Twister”. The data were acquired with a Cyber ware full-body laser scanner. For the little story, Collins stood on a turntable, which was driven by his wife. This little simple touch, movements were captured during by the scan and gave this amazing and interesting distortion.

This is the 3d data gathered by the laser sc	This is the final object printed layer by layer

http://prism.asu.edu/

http://prism.asu.edu/resources/datasets.php
There are some other artist out there exploring this technology creating beautifull and unusual artifacts.

Michael Rees

This artist has been exploring aesthetic vs artificial Life. One of this major piece “Putto8” appeared in every Digital Art textbooks. The first step of his worked is based on 3d modeling/animation, and then bring them to “Life” , bring then into our physical world using different media. Such as sculpture made of resin –filled plaster, or fiberglass etc…
This way of thinking, executing is very appealing. I am very fascinated by the process and the use of different material to recreate a 3d Print. I am seriously considering this concept on my final project.

Putto 22222 Black Patina on Bronze	Putto 82222 v2 Resin-filled plaster,3d print,Aluminum paint	Putto 82222 Fiberglass

http://www.artnet.com/artist/14069/michael-rees.html

You can find an interesting paper on Putto 4
www.michaelrees.com/assets/MartaSMwebMR.pdf

Artist statements of this 2 artists can be found o=in this website
3D sculpture – Rapid Prototyping
http://b3308-adm.cl.uh.edu/egret/fall2004/IRPSE.html

I came across this very interesting website: Bitforms

This is actually a gallery in New York City devoted to new media art practices. Since 2001, bitforms gallery has become a highly recognized place of exhibition for artists, curators, and collectors exploring new art forms. If I go back to New York I will definitely have a look. You can see pieces from artist such as Michael Rees, Golan Levin or even Manfred Mohr. This gallery is covering only bitforms art but any digital Art creations.
http://www.bitforms.com/

Generative art 2

Framsticks

What is Framsticks? a three-dimensional life simulation project. If you take the time to play with this application, you realize that this tool is quite versatile. You can model, simulate and optimize virtual agents, with three-dimensional body and embedded control system. Simulation model is described first. First the system introduces specific tools supporting human understanding of evolutionary processes, control and behaviors. I could not resist to play with it …PC only.

I did not have enough time to get further in the application, however the application is quite straightforward and easy to understand. You can choose different behaviors, sometimes quite complex…..

http://www.framsticks.com/

The Ant Farm

I played with this one, which I found very worthy of note especially for the behaviors.
The ant farm is a well-known simulator based on the ant’s aptitude to coordinate task of food gathering and their skill to recognize odors and own trace.
In this set up the ant does not have any memories and consequently do not remember their nest or food location. Instead they will follow odor traces placed on the ground. The trace will vanish after awhile which make their life a lot more disturbing.

http://www.geocities.com/chamonate/hormigas/antfarm/

Golly Simulator

At this moment I am looking at the Golly simulator. This is an open source
However there is an open source, a cross-platform Game of Life simulator called Golly. This application integrates different patterns and behaviors wrote in Perl or Python. It is very flexible in a way

Currently under development by Andrew Trevorrow and Tomas Rokicki. Our goal is to write a world-class Life simulator, solicit ideas and help from the planet’s best Life hackers, and share some of

http://golly.sourceforge.net/

I did found quite a few simulator, however, most of the time they are based on a square pixel behavior, which end up not very appealing graphically.

LifeLab Simulator

http://www.trevorrow.com/lifelab/index.html

Golan Levin

I think there is no need to introduce Golan Levin. If I say things such as “The Dumpster’, “Messa De Voce”, “Swimming Particules” etc…., that should ring the bell, if not click straight away on the link and have a look.

Dendron

is an interactive software artwork, developed in 2001, which allows the user to gesturally engage with “Diffusion-Limited Aggregation” (DLA), an organic simulation of a kind of tree-shaped mineral growth.

http://s12336.gridserver.com/projects/dendron/

Golan website- Worth the detour
http://www.golanlevin.com/

Levitated

Evolving Computational Creatures
Beautiful website page, covering theme such as evolution, emergence, locomotion/movement etc…with example made from different artists.
To refresh my skill in Flash I add a go on the bacteria based system…and here the piece.

Unfortunatly I could not upload the flash file…..

http://www.levitated.net/notes/ECC/

generator x – generator art movement

Generating Art using real-time video graphic such as VVVV or processing
Some rally interesting projects are made with generating video. Most of the project in this 2 websites are fascinating, especially graphically. It is amazing what we can do with codes …..!!! I think I should learn, I start to get frustrated now.
http://www.unlekker.net/proj/illuminations/
http://www.unlekker.net/proj/illuminations/

Sommer and Mignonneau

I cannot move on to my next study without mentioning this two artists/engineer. They worked on different projects based on Genetic Art: a metaphor for artificial life, evolution, and gene manipulation. Beautiful work, a must seen.

click on the picture to see the animation

http://www.viewingspace.com/genetics_culture/pages_genetics_culture/gc_w05/somm_mign.htm