Spatial AR: Interdimensional Portals
Exploring two different approaches toward the production of spatial augmented reality experiences, I attempted to cast portals into other dimensions.
In “Lens of Desire”, I attempted a technique of “analog” augmentation, using two cameras to play with the space within the guitar case as well as the space between the user and his medium. The user’s fantasies live within that case, but only this enchanted lens can detect it. I drew this AR concept from Janet Cardiff’s “Alter Bahnhof Video Walk”, a hyperreal pod-play that leverages the phone screen to open a window to an alternate reality within the same space actually being observed.
“Piano Parlor” deepens the experience of magic that dwells in my studio by transporting the user to a baroque drawing room, replete with finery and harpsichord, only 180 degrees away from the spinet piano established at the opening shot. I used an app called ARLOOPA, which features a number of impressively rendered ornate historical living spaces. After finding this room on sketchfab, captured within Stolkholm’s Hallywyl Musesum, I discovered ARLOOPA in the comments section of the 3D model’s page.
There are a few AR experiences I’ve recently enjoyed that I think are worth mention. For one, a new game called “Telling Lies”, which authorizes the player to trespass into the first-person character’s desktop, and rifle through as much as 7 hours of facetime conversational footage to unravel a very dark story. The most delightful component was that all the while through gameplay, the reflection of a female first-person investigator, at her computer in her home, is displayed overlaying the perspective of the desktop interface. Effectively, this technique displaces my own reflection and space as I embody the narrative experience of this woman in her apartment, which at times was hilariously startling at instances when her environment bustles with some activity, like a concerned roommate and a mischievous cat who prances on the keyboard. This method of subordinating the self toward the submergence into a story world is a very powerful feature that enhances the framing procedures of this non-linear interactive story. Also, it is dark. Very dark. Which leads me to my next example…
