André Lemos is Associate Professor, Faculty of Communication, Federal University of Bahia, Brazil. PhD in Sociology, Sorbonne (1995), Visiting Scholar University of Alberta and McGill University, Canada (2007-2008). Coordinator of Cybercity Research Group (UFBa/CNPq) and Researcher level 1 at CNPq. Member of Prix Ars Electronica, Wi. Journal of Mobile Media and Canadian Journal of Communication Board. This Carnet is online since March 1st, 2001.
Mixed reality ou "augmented reality" (Azuma, 1997) são expressões utilizadas para descrever sistemas que interpolam informação digital a espaços físicos, urbanos, privados, públicos e semi-públicos. Há exemplos no turismo/game, como o Time Warp em Colonia, em pervasive games como Epidemic Menace, em obras artísticas como o Invivíveis de Bruno Vianna, ou aplicações científicas e comerciais voltadas para pesquisa e aplicações de localização com dispositivos móveis. Podemos definir mixed reality ou augmented reality como sistemas informatizados usando tecnologias e serviços baseados em localização onde o usuário, a partir de dispositivos especiais (tipo VR ou outros tipo de visor), interage com o espaço físico e com camadas informacionais a ele interligadas. As fotos abaixo ilustram essa definição.
Os sistemas demonstram a relação entre espaço eletrônico e espaço físico trazendo novas funções (informacionais, sociais, culturais, artísticas, lúdicas) aos lugares. Tenho chamado esse hibridização de territorialização informacional e propondo ver essas novas funções como heterotopias emergentes na sociedade da informação. Outros autores chamam esse "território" de "espaço instersticial" (Santaella, 2007), ?digital bubble? (Beslay e Hakala, 2005) ou ?virtual wall? (Kapadia, et al., 2007). O que interessa ver aqui é a nova fase da cibercultura, que chamo metaforicamente da fase do "download" do ciberespaço, da "internet das coisas", ou como mostrava Ben Russel no seu Roadmap Manifest de 1999: "The internet has already started leaking into the real world" (1999). Vejam abaixo como o "Second Life" está sendo "baixado" para os espaços e lugares públicos/semi-públicos através de posts do transArchitectural Topography, de Michael Ditullio. Ele aponta para experiências de realidade mixta/aumentada, com telas sobreposta a espaços públicos em que avatares do "second life" interagem com pessoas "reais" na "first life". Trechos e imagens do Michael Ditullio.
"I recently viewed a demo video of 'The Gate' project at the at the inaugural exhibition for the opening of iMAL new venue, 4-7 OCT 2007 in Brussels. This installation utilizes a single mixed reality boundary (MRB) to connect physical space with the virtual world known as Second Life. The project shows some interesting interactions that take place between the two interconnected spaces including spontaneous dancing (by both physical occupants and avatars) as well as some attempts at textual communication. The participants at both ends seem enthusiastic about expression and communication across spatial types and more importantly- having fun." (...)
Outras experiências no Urban Screens em Manchester, 2007.
"(...) This project was displayed during the Urban Screens Manchester 2007 festival. It is aptly called 'Liberate Your Avatar' and has a dedicated web page here. Paul Sermon has created a space where people can interact with avatars through a single Mixed Reality Boundary. As you can see, this boundary exists in both physical space and virtual space simulatneously. He creates a composite image that allows people and avatars to 'inhabit' the same space while simultaneously (bodily) occupying their own space.
As described on the website: 'The merged realities of ?All Saints Gardens? on Oxford Road, and its online three-dimensional counterpart in ?Second Life? will, for the first time, allow ?first life? visitors and ?second life? avatars to coexist and share the same park bench in a live interactive public video installation. Entering into this feedback loop through a portal between these two parallel worlds this event exposes the identity paradox in Second Life.' "
Mais um sistema que coloca ênfase na localização e na hibridação de camadas informacionais com a "realidade" do espaço físico. Trata-se do Enkin, para o Android, que mescla GPS, mapas, câmera:
"'Enkin' introduces a new handheld navigation concept. It displays location-based content in a unique way that bridges the gap between reality and classic map-like representations. It combines GPS, orientation sensors, 3D graphics, live video, several web services and a novel user interface into an intuitive and light navigation system for mobile devices. This project is a submission for the first round of the Google Android Developer Challenge and should not be considered a final product."
Postei anteriormente informando sobre o simposio Mixed Reality:
The Vitruvian World
"Mixed Realities is an exhibition and symposium that explores the convergence?through cyberspace?of real and synthetic places made possible by computers and networks. Mixed Realities links and overlays the Huret & Spector Gallery (Boston), Turbulence.org, and Ars Virtua (Second Life). Second Life is a shared, synthetic, 3-D environment through which people can interact in real-time by means of a virtual self or avatar. Although it's an imaginary place, it is often able to ?masquerade as real? (Richard Bartle) because it approximates reality persuasively enough to facilitate player immersion. Audience members ? who will be embodied as avatars in Second Life, browsing the works at turbulence.org, and/or be physically present in the gallery ? will interact with the works and with one another. Thus, Mixed Realities will enable people who are distributed across multiple physical and virtual spaces to communicate with one another and share experiences in real time."
Post do Networked_Performance traz atualizações sobre o evento. O interessante aqui é vermos mais uma vez como a dimensão de hibridização entre o "mundo real" e o "mundo virtual" (Geovector, por exemplo, cujo lema é "click on the real world"), reconfiguram os lugares criando novos sentidos e usos. Vejam também o blog "Place of Social Media" de Eric Gordon.
Trechos dos temas abordados na exposição (vejam link acima para detalhes):
(...) Each of the pieces points to changing notions of place. In geographical terms, place is experienced space. It is meaningful space, enhanced by personal encounter, perpetuated by memories. But when space is 'neither here nor there,' but a combination of the two, how does place take shape? Do digital spaces have the same capacity to be experienced as physical spaces? And what?s at stake? We might find answers to this question as we address the concepts of immersion and presence. Do we need to be immersed and present to experience? Consider Heidegger?s notion of dasein, or being there. For Heidegger, being was tied to presence. Human experience was always grounded in da-sein, never just sein. Is dasein possible in a mixed reality?
And finally, we might talk about the problem of attention. Multiple realities, multiple places, would seem to pull our attention in multiple directions. Does this work point to the loss of focus? Is it possible to be present, without paying attention? Or, do we need only to reconsider the current economy of attention? Perhaps, mixed realities points to new structures of attention, where we can distribute our payments for enhanced benefit.(...)".
Os debates, exposições, cursos e conferências sobre o tema da "ecologia híbrida", ou das novas formas de comunicação (mídias locativas) que colocam em fusão o espaço eletrônico e o espaço físico não páram de crescer. O simpósio e exposição Mixed Realities pretende discutir essa temática em Boston, agora em fevereiro.
"Mixed Realities - An International Networked Art Exhibition and Symposium
Opening and Performance: February 7, 2008; 5-7 pm Symposium: February 8; 10 am - 5 pm Workshop: February 9; 1-5 pm Exhibition: February 7 - April 15, 2008
Free and Open to the Public
To Register for Symposium: email jo at turbulence dot org with Symposium in the subject line (Lunch included)
To Register for Workshop: email jo at turbulence dot org with Workshop in the subject line (Limited to 12 participants)
Concept
Mixed Reality is the merging of real and virtual worlds to produce new environments where physical and digital objects can co-exist and interact in real-time.
Mixed Realities is an exhibition and symposium that explores the convergence?through cyberspace?of real and synthetic places made possible by computers and networks. Mixed Realities links and overlays the Huret & Spector Gallery (Boston), Turbulence.org, and Ars Virtua (Second Life)."
Mixed Realities, Mundos Virtuais e Transarquitetura
Tenho trabalhado com a hipótese de que a relação híbrida entre o espaço eletrônico, o espaço físico das cidades e a mobilidade informacional têm criado "territórios informacionais" (daí o interesse por mídias de função pós-massiva, locative media - mapping, geolocalização, street games, smart mobs, etc). Esses territórios estão em expansão hoje com sistemas de "realidade aumentada", fusão de espaço e instituições concretas com os mundos virtuais como Second Life, em formas de arquitetura fluida e informacional. Mostrando a importância do tema, vários eventos estão discutindo essa questão. Em 2008 acreditamos que essas questões se tornarão ainda mais importantes. Vejamos algumas pistas:
O evento "Mixed Reality" discute os territórios informacionais em exposição e simpósio em uma galeria em Boston e também no Second Life. Via Networked_Performance:
"Mixed Realities is an exhibition and symposium that explores the convergence?through cyberspace?of real and synthetic places made possible by computers and networks. Mixed Realities links and overlays the Huret & Spector Gallery (Boston), Turbulence.org, and Ars Virtua (Second Life). Second Life is a shared, synthetic, 3-D environment through which people can interact in real-time by means of a virtual self or avatar. Although it?s an imaginary place, it is often able to ?masquerade as real? (Richard Bartle) because it approximates reality persuasively enough to facilitate player immersion. Audience members ? who will be embodied as avatars in Second Life, browsing the works at http://turbulence.org, and/or be physically present in the gallery ? will interact with the works and with one another. Thus, Mixed Realities will enable people who are distributed across multiple physical and virtual spaces to communicate with one another and share experiences in real time."
Na mesma "vibe", temos o "Digital Networks and Physical Space", no Medialab Prado, na Espanha, discutindo a fusão do ciberespaço e dos espaço físico criando territórios informacionais:
"The purpose of this open participation meeting is to explore the relationship between digital networks and physical space in the context of the increasingly widespread use of portable technology and Web applications in connection with the production and management of geographic information."
Em desenvolvimento estão os mundos virtuais (como o Second Life) que fundem jogo e vida real. Eles vão se radicalizar e diversificar em 2008, é o que mostra o post do Digital Urban. Novos sistemas estão sendo criados como o AWOMO e o House da Playstation. A aposta para 2008 é o Mundo Virtual do Google que deverá, como sempre, fazer muito barulho. Vejam imagens e trechos do post:
"Second Life broke into the main stream during 2007 and perhaps more than any virtual world to date illustrated how digital environments can be used for visualisation and communication in the sciences. (...)
A World of My Own (AWOMO), currently in beta, is indicative of the increasing number of systems that are looking to get into the Second Life model. Interestingly the system is aimed at developing a communication space and distribution network for gamers.
Sony's 'Home' is similar in concept to AWMO but via the Playstation 3, a notable move to bringing virtual worlds into the home.(...)
More speculative predictions are the launch of Google's own Virtual World system, something that wouldn't surprise us at all. Google Earth is being rapidly out manoeuvred by Microsoft's Virtual Earth and a populated earth is without question the next big thing. We would love to tell you more about the 'Populated Earth' but sadly we aren't allowed to yet :)
The number of virtual environments is growing at an ever increasing pace, we believe 2008 will be the year of Virtual Worlds entering into main stream science and that can only be a good thing for outreach, education and visualisation."
Interessante também, no que se refere a territórios informacionais, é o blog "transArchitectural Topography", de Michael Ditullio, mostrando, pelo lado da arquitetura e do design, o interesse em se pensar e reconhecer esses territórios. Vejam trechos da descrição do conceito:
"I will define transArchitectural Topography as the substrata or virtual/physical topography which underlie all connected virtual and physical spaces. transArchitectural Topography encompasses a physical location, virtual location(s), and any infrastructure that connects the two. Specifically, the transArchitectural Topography extends from a single physical space, into a single virtual space uniting the two. As Marcos Novak describes the idea of transArchitecture, he speaks about both a visible and invisible element to it. The invisible is referred to as the underlying structural system or infrastructural system which supports the architecture in either case. Novak sees this architecture as one which exists across spatial conditions.(...)
As the physical structure approaches the virtual it will begin to represent all possible spatial iterations contained within it."
