On Locative Art

N Building from Alexander Reeder on Vimeo.

I wonder how this will age. At the very least, it will be an interesting tech-relic. From an energy consumption/light pollution/mental pollution standpoint this is a great remedy. Might a combination of “visual search”+geotagging eventually replace the AR patterns? That seems more elegant – but admittedly more technical than the FLARToolkit. The patterns remind me of “warchalking.” I look forward to the spread of this technology to the programmer kid with stencils running around the city. I’d like to see something like the following piece…

One Minute Soundsculpture from Daniel Franke on Vimeo.

Seeing a crowd of people gathered around a seemingly empty street corner seems just as ridiculous (and likely) as people with bluetooth headsets yammering to themselves. I’m also reminded of the “locative art” featured in William Gibson’s book “Spook Country,” although that was dependent on wi-fi rather than visual markers. I’m tempted to say visual is more robust because it doesn’t require a power source – but it’s also prone to tampering/removal. An artist could make some pretty bold statements with this technology. Since it requires a device for viewing, it probably wouldn’t be as powerfully subversive as some of Krzysztof Wodiczko‘s pieces, but you couldn’t be denied permission to execute a piece (which I believe was the case with the St. Louis Courthouse projection.) Where will we find our new Writer’s Bench?

For further investigation: How can we inject rigor into a sound sculpture project such as this? What parameters created and drove the forms?

Writing

On Locative Art