52 Card Cinema

52 Card Cinema is an installation-based investigation into cinematic structures and interactive cinema viewership. The concept is simple: 52 cards, each printed with a unique identifier, are replaced in the subject's view by the individual shots that make up a movie scene. The cards can be stacked, dealt, arranged in their original order or re-composed in different configurations, creating spreads of time. The technology used is marker-based augmented reality, where special printed markers are recognized in the video feed and pass data regarding their unique identifier, their position, and their orientation. The computer then feeds a display overlaying the video clips of each shot onto the appropriate card and continually mapping their position and orientation.

52 Card Cinema

SnapDragonAR

SnapDragonAR is a unique new tool for artists, educators, and storytellers of all ages. Use the drag and drop interface to augment markers with in sight of your webcam with moving images. Place the markers anywhere you want to see your images come to life. Experiment, create, tell new stories. Transform any surface into a screen simply by adding a marker. Print stickers, bring everyday objects to life. Make your own projects at home. Simply print your markers, turn on the camera, and start dragging 2D images from your computer into the drop zones.

SnapDragonAR is produced by the Augmented Reality Lab at York University in association with Mark Fiala and is now available to download. The groundbreaking software is inspired by the works of G. A. Rhodes' 52 Card Psycho and Caitlin Fisher's Andromeda, co-winner of the City of Vinaròs 4th International Digital Literature Award 2008. Use your Mac (Intel only) and a webcam, print your markers, drag in some digital images or video clips (quicktime compatible clips required).

SnapDragonAR from Future Stories

Google Earth Movies

Google Earth Movies project consists in a series of interactive adaptations of emblematic sequences extracted from famous movies, recreated and played in Google Earth.

In this visualization software, which allows exploring the 3D world from many satellite sources - topographical and weather satellites - the original video camera movements are precisely transcribed in the original filming location and with the original soundtrack synchronized. Moreover, the software being interactive, a joystick may be used to manipulate the camera during the reading to observe the whole screen out landscape.

Thus, it is a striking cinematographic experience that is given to us: the objectivation operated by Google Earth, presenting ghostly worlds emptied from any characters, allows to be focused on the framing and the editing of these well-known movies haunting our imagination. Putting these narrative sequences back in context establishes a true bridge between these cinematographic, physical and virtual spaces. The spectator is freed from the frame and from the territory; he is given a new space of time, a sort of intimate screen out, interrogating its link to the real and to fiction.

Emilie Brout & Maxime Marion