[spectre] Reality is out there | Get lost in reality before it disappears in augmenting virtuality

[Guy McMusker]

-- Sorry for any crossposting --

“What is invisible is essential to the eyes”
Gregory Cooper

RIOT: GET LOST IN TURIN
A tree falls in the center of Turin when no smart phone is around to
experience it. Does it make a sound out there? Not so far, a voice:
“Hello! hello? hello!? ...” It’s Angela who’s obsessively speaking to
its mobile phone while the vision of some large glossy avatar
protesting in the public square appears in front of her. “That’s quite
a nonsense” says Marco looking at that crazy Monument to the Banana
Revolution from its smart phone screen. “This is not exactly what I
was expecting from Augmented Reality!”
Beside them, standing in the middle of the street and staring at the
invisible among the general curiosity of urban passers-by, Guy
McMusker affirms: “Stop watching obsolete computer screens. It’s time
to reshape reality. The Internet is here and now. Reality is out
there.”

AUGMENT YOUR POINTS OF VIEW
Commissioned by Piemonte SHARE Festival 2010, Reality Is Out There
(RIOT) is the latest project from the internet art duo Les Liens
Invisibles. First attempt of a series of imaginary interventions on
urban landscape through the tactical use of Augmented Reality (AR)
technologies, the project - started in Turin during, last November and
is currently ongoing - it is a sort of collective hallucination:
invisible to the eyes but visible through the viewer of a smart phone
device.
The artists, well known for their online manipulations, have unleashed
from the Internet a joyful and colorful array of materials (avatar
icons, sculptures of glossy web interface elements, 3D models, illegal
mp3 files, porno pictures...) by spreading them out and reassembling
them to invent new interactions between the real and the virtual
realm.

FIND YOURSELF IN REALITY
Get ready to subvert the use of the popular Layar augmented reality
browser app into a sort of paradoxical psychogeographic tourism:
public space will become a mere but indispensable medium through which
new forms of info-hallucinations can be explored and experienced. Just
take a walk around, make your own lonely trip, get lost in your
augmented urban landscape, and don’t forget to take a picture. At
last, you know: Reality is out there.

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EXPERIENCE IT
Launch and experience yourself the imaginary interventions through
your smart mobile device
@ http://m.layar.com/open/lliriot
A free Layar Aumented Reality browser for iPhone 3GS/4 or Android
platform is required.

HOW IT WORKS
@ http://www.realityisoutthere.net/instructions

PROJECT WEBSITE
@ http://www.realityisoutthere.net

PUBLIC SPACE INTERVENTIONS
@ http://www.realityisoutthere.net/interventions

CREDITS
Reality is Out There is a project by Les Liens Invisibles
commissioned by Piemonte Share Festival
as special project for Smart Mistakes exhibition.

In collaboration with the department of Scienze dell'Educazione e
della Formazione

For a full list of credits > http://www.realityisoutthere.net/credits