I’ve been blogging effectively every day for nearly five years, so it’s hard to avoid novelty - that’s kind of what we publish. The question is, is it the novelty that’s important, or do you see these as little steps toward something greater that hasn’t happened yet? I tend to favor the latter.

Here’s the question: can augmented reality - using computer vision tools to mix computer graphics with stuff in the real world - become a real medium and not just a gimmick?

If it works in a game, you begin to think there’s really something to an interactive design. I’m not certain yet about the upcoming PSP game from giant Sony. Georgia Tech researchers, on the other hand, are coming up with stuff I really want to play.

Oh, yeah - and it makes me crave some Skittles. (Product integration, anyone?)

APPARATI EFFIMERI Tetragram for Enlargement from Apparati Effimeri on Vimeo.

Apparati Effimeri write to let us know about their latest visualist projection mapping project, “TETRAGRAM FOR ENLARGEMENT.” Watching abstract patterns wend their way across the geometries of the castle-like building is hypnotic, to be sure. But it’s as the visuals make the building seem to melt, collapse, and reconstruct itself into fluid shapes worthy of Dali that things
get really interesting.

Blog post + stills

I have to ask: is it really club culture that has “failed” the visualist, or just the limited architectures of the clubs we have now? Projection mapping has tended to be the domain of “art” visuals. But I wonder if music and visuals alike might benefit from sharing new spaces. Heck, I’d be happy to go dance outdoors to adventurous music programming while visuals crept around the buildings around me.

So, do spread this stuff around, because sometimes the live event metaphor in which a lot of us find ourselves is something very different — the silo.

You know the types - I’d say I had a music video made in MS Paint, and you’d watch it and it’d turn out to be made by some hypergenius insomniac who made some intricate animated film using only the spraycan tool. Happily, that is not the case here. “jono” writes to tell us about his Microsoft Paint music video, which he made while he had the flu. And you may feel a wave of nostalgia for MS Paint or the Bill Atkinson-created MacPaint that Microsoft cloned, because the illustrations look like the illustrations you did while bored in computer class. (I may be projecting here.)

And then there’s a flying copy machine. It’s sublime.

klerical team - by New Zealand’s EFT
Electronic Masters of Tapestry [MySpace]

I am also really feeling the lyrics - seriously. I have so, so much to do … so much follow-up to do. Off to Gmail.

Also, they’re from New Zealand, so expect an HBO show next week.

“Visual label” ANTIVJ has made an artistic expertise of projection mapping, light sculpture, outdoor projection, and generally painting projections onto architecture and objects. I got to see their latest work in Montreal at MUTEK, and will have an interview with them up this week. In the meantime, here’s a really stunning work from the Netherlands, at the cathedral in Breda. With original music by Thomas Vaquié, played on organ by Gerard Maters with light design by Giacinto Caponio, Grote Kerk is a sublime modern, digital spectacle, a light and sound show in a tradition extending back to the magic lantern shows. All of this is performed live using software from arKaos. (Thanks to arKaos’ own Marc Nostromo, who incidentally has a fantastic blog on noisepages.)

http://antivj.com/

For another work from this crew, here’s Joanie Lemercier’s Live Painting: Shackleton, performed live in Croft, Bristol, UK at the end of last year:

AntiVJ - Live Painting: Shackleton from AntiVJ on Vimeo.

Food for thought. I’ve definitely spent some time in what felt like procedurally-generated architecture — some of which seemed to have some bugs in it, where the algorithm created spaces that made no sense. And yet they were built by human hands… discuss?

Top: from comments, Procedural System Structure, as discovered by Joahnsonn.
http://proceduralcity.com/ as powered by NVIDIA PhysX and OpenGL

Another (stunning) example: Procedural CitySystem.
http://www.procedural.com/

Bottom: Introversion’s engine builds what looks like generic European cities. Lots of discussion on the Introversion forums:
It’s all in your head, Part 7

Wow, it’s Milklovano, from the former Soviet satellite nation you’ve forgotten, recreated in all its gritty blandness!

Wait, actually, Introversion is from the UK…

Wow, it’s Nortchesterhampton, recreated in all its gritty blandness!

Seriously, really quite brilliant work making this function - and it says a lot about what could be generated procedurally for art as well as games (to say nothing of game art).

We already knew Introversion had some serious game design chops from their gorgeously minimal game Darwinia. Now, can we play Darwinia in a city?

Previously:
Evening in a Procedural City, Built in OpenGL