Today in class we discussed:

The Artvertiser – Julian Oliver, Damian Stewart, et al (video)
The Artvertiser is a software platform for replacing billboard advertisements with art in real-time. It works by teaching computers to ‘recognise’ individual advertisements so they can be easily replaced with alternative content, like images and video.

Newstweek – Julian Oliver (video)
Security experts discover a small unobtrusive device, easily hidden near wireless hotspots, that allows remote users to ‘edit’ content on trusted news sites before it is read on laptops and phones. Read on for our Newstweek Exclusive…

Face Visualizer, Face Instrument – Daito Manabe (video)
I got inspired “we can make fake smile with sending electric stimulation signals from computer to face, but NO ONE can make real smile without humans emotion”. This is words from Mr. Teruoka who is my collaborator to make devices.

Hand from Above – Chris O’Shea (video)
Unsuspecting pedestrians will be tickled, stretched, flicked or removed entirely in real-time by a giant deity.

Nervous System – Jessica Rosenkrantz & Jesse Louis-Rosenberg (flickr)
Nervous System is a design studio that works at the intersection of science, art, and technology. We create using a novel process that employs computer simulation to generate designs and digital fabrication to realize products. Drawing inspiration from natural phenomena, we write computer programs mimicking processes and patterns found in nature and use those programs to create unique and affordable art, jewelry, and housewares.

Laser Tag – Theo Watson, Evan Roth, Grafitti Research Lab (video)
During a cold week in February, armed with several high power lasers, two hardcore projectors and a camper van, the Graffiti Research Lab and I went about turning the back of a large office building in Rotterdam into a massive laser-tagable space. Writers from all over Europe came down to have a go at writing their tags 140 feet high. Kids, old people and random members of the public all enjoyed being able to write messages on a building which could be seen across the whole city.

Kinect Ultraman – Tomoto Washio (video)
Tomoto Washio has created this augmented reality hack where you can transform yourself into Ultra Seven (an old-time tokusatsu superhero of Japan) and can also use his superpowers. This system basically renders a person looking like a superhero by modulating the original image, and also renders the superhero’s powers (such as beams or ammunitions) as 3D virtual objects responding to specific poses the person takes. This system superimposes 3D virtual objects over the real in a depth-sensitive way, and also performing hit testing between virtual objects and real world objects, which makes you feel as though you actually became the superhero himself and were using his power in the AR world.

Body Dysmorphic Disorder – Robert Hodgin (video)
All that’s left is to add back in the original color values and voila, instant fatsuit and extremely creepy late-night distraction. In order to push the creepy vibe, I am only drawing the frags that are within a certain distance to the camera. If they are background frags, I discard them entirely. This ends up being extra useful because the depth image from the Kinect has a bit of parallax shadowing on the side where the depth data goes to black. Eliminating the drawing of these unwanted artifacts will clean up the final image quite a bit.

Additional links discussed in class. 

• Baby Name Voyager (2005, Martin Wattenberg)
• Text Rain (1999, Camille Utterback & Romy Achituv)
• Sniff interactive dog (Karolina Sobecka & Jim Georges)
• Hand from Above (2009, Chris O’Shea)
• LASER Tag (2006, Graffiti Research Lab)
• IQ Font (2009, Zach Lieberman et al.)