Information Technology Reference
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(Toews
2013
), the artistic interface becomes invasive in its deployment. Participants
are engaging the real world through a mediated context which dramatizes spaces
that are otherwise mundane. This not only breaks down the “fourth wall” in terms
of active participation, it also eliminates the physical boundaries in which this
art is experienced. Pyrite allows viewers to create and find persistent sculptures
anywhere, turning even mundane locations into opportunities for artistic display.
Manifest.AR's gallery interventions allow visitors to their website the ability to
submit art and have it virtually displayed in any number of galleries worldwide.
Thus the performative approach that these pieces foster contextually redefines not
just the conventional interactive spaces, but potentially any part of the real world.
It's tempting with focus on such work to see the medium of AR as one
that's breaking down or eliminating the privileged space of the gallery in favor
of more pervasive and revolutionary implementation. The interactivity which
actively engages viewers both in the viewing of the piece and the expression of
it through their creative action seems to break down most if not all of the gallery's
proscriptions. Arguably however, the blurring of lines for exhibition space when
considering AR is not so much the removal of the wall, but the translocation
of it. Explanation or revelation of the experience's border parameters is always
deferred, until the performative and perlocutionary components of the piece are
exhausted. Only then do viewers, if they engage for an appropriate period of time,
grasp the borders of what the piece can offer. In other cases the borders may be
more apparent, in the affordances of where one can see the work, the degree to
which manipulation or sensing of its elements is restricted by granularity of GPS
sensors (for non-marker-based AR) or even short-comings of the technology itself,
such as the quality of cameras and their ability to compensate for a variety of
conditions.
But even setting aside these restrictions, there is still the underlying architecture,
the operational logic of the piece which remains implicit, not explicit, to the viewer
(Wardrip-Fruin and Mateas
2009
). There is a body of computer code, one could
even argue language, that is just as valenced and proscriptive as the visual language
of curation in physical exhibition. But compiled programs can only be explored
experientially, in a virtual manner. Thus through the lens of software development,
works which in terms of physical space seem limitless and inexhaustible are actually
very clearly delineated on a code level. They have acceptable, supported forms
of interaction (with all the affordances those entail) even if only visible to the
artist. Indeed, there's much to be said about the parallels between gallery art
installation - resulting from the configuration of elements in precise manners for
an intended aesthetic effect - and art software installation - the arrangement of a
computational device's physical states into precise configurations for an intended
aesthetic functionality. What confuses our perception of AR borders is that it
is a medium seeking (or in dialogue with) embodiment. It inscribes a specific
domain from the riot of virtual expressive possibilities, touching the physical
world. And it asks of its audience that they engage these virtual elements in an
embodied way.
