Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 16.3
A screenshot of
Monument R.I.O.T
, 2010, Les Liens Invisible, augmented reality,
copyright Les Liens Invisible and Share Festival. A view of Turin (IT) with one of R.I.O.T. works
series
the MoMA did not know about it. The infiltration was organized as part of Conflux,
the psychogeography festival (
Skwarek and Veenhof 2010
).
Sander Veenhof and Mark Skwarek, the two artists behind the invasion, extended
to the public a 'cordial' tongue-in-cheek invitation to their temporary exhibition,
adding a post scriptum that the MoMA itself was yet to be involved. Squatting in
the halls of the MoMA in New York, the exhibition featured augmented reality
art in its proper context: a contemporary art museum, showcasing the radical new
possibilities and implications that augmented reality is bringing to the cultural and
creative field. Over thirty artists took part in the “'art invasion' annex exhibition”
(Ibidem), distributing their works on all the floors of the building and effectively
taking over the MoMA. In the artists' statement, Veenhof and Skwarek attribute
remarkable responsibility to a technology that allows provocation without the risk
of arrest that graffiti artists face, even though they are not anonymous. They called
it 'progression' in the field of art; depending on the way you look at it, it is artistic
freedom or just plain illegal.
Space is expanding in terms of the information it holds, and is being augmented
through the addition of media such as images, video, sound, music, words and
data, which are introduced in space, but also captured within space (see Fig.
16.4
).
Augmented space is a space that is monitored and watched at the same time; it is
a space in which users are tracked, where data is distributed but also extracted. In
this context, the aesthetics of ubiquitous computing opposes art to virtual reality by
