Real and virtual spaces
28 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
in ARIN6903 Entries for Course Assessment Tags: art, Digital Cultures, prod-user, virtual reality
Dortmund, the next big city to the place that I originally come from, just hosted the “e-culture fair 2010” (23.-25. August 2010). During this event, the Dortmund U Center for Art and Creativity focused on “innovative projects in the fields of creative industry, research, education and media art”.
http://www.eculturefair2010.eu/
(picture above taken from this site)
The Dutch artist Sander Veenhof, very well known for his augmented reality (“AR”) projects, realised one of them. His contribution to the e-culture fair was entitled “AR cityshapes”. Users of iPhone or Android mobile phones could load Layar (an AR browser application) to their devices and participate in a virtual, 3D building project right at the side of the real tower of Dortmund U, a city landmark. By placing or piling virtual blocks people were able to create “shapes as big or bigger as the nearby buildings”.
http://www.sndrv.nl/cityshapes/
With all his projects, Veenhof aims at bridging the virtual and the real world. AR cityshapes in fact managed to draw these spheres closer together – the virtual becoming less abstract and more approachable. But at the same time the potential of the project to reach out to a global audience was restricted.
In his book “New Media: An Introduction” (Oxford University Press, 2008), Terry Flew summarizes 20 key new media concepts and virtuality is one of them. He mentions the dimensions of the online and offline world as well as the global and the local being drawn together. Veenhof’s project is an example for many of the concepts that Flew identified: Every person can become a producer and consumer. Participation and interactivity are at the heart of AR cityshapes. Here, not only the level of para-social interactivity can be seen but also user-to-system interaction. Furthermore, a downside of Veenhof’s project, there is a digital devide because participation is limited to users of iPhone and Android. Those, who cannot afford these new and quite expensive gadgets, are excluded from the experience. Nevertheless, in terms of space is the virtual reality of AR cityshapes decidedly bound to the local. Participation is limited to the people that visit the real site.
With regards to Veenhof’s project I would argue this to be a positive aspect. In my first entry to this Blog I already mentioned how going there and being on-site can add to the experience. Culture – and art as an expression of it – is linking people. In my opinion, by bringing people together in the same locality and potentially at the same time AR cityshapes reactivates an aspect that became neglected with the rise of the industrial society.
Fortunately, convergence and the morphing of devices (compare Flew) offer us great mobility and the chance to shape and experience the world with and through ICT and new media. A bridging of virtual and real space could even lead to the end of some disagreements in suburban environments. Were graffiti artists to start a new underground movement and create their art in the parallel, virtual space, only those appreciative or curious enough would get to see it…
