Construction
Construct: SARIE
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AimSARIE (Spatially Augmented Reality Interactive Environment) is a mock-up of an interface between a virtual design space and a real design space. It is based on the experience from the immersive constructions of The Virtual Architect and Push and the augmented proof of concept of The Blind Architect. SARIE takes these constructions further and develops a real spatial construction for shared interaction with an embedded space. This is done through a discussion and use of augmented reality and spatially augmented reality as it was defined in The Blind Architect.
ConstructionSARIE is constructed by superimposing a real and a virtual design spaces and using the spatial surface, which ‘holds’ the video projection, as a traceable physical interface.
On this surface, there is a series of nodes or handles distributed to make it possible to construct the configuration of the interface/surface. In other words, the virtual design space is manipulated by interaction with the very surface on which it is displayed. However, this spatial surface is not static: It will change form and structure according to the interactions by the user. The spatial surface may be folded and twisted as the user interacts with that surface to manipulate the virtual space that is projected upon it. The dynamic circles of interaction create an interactive environment, in which the virtual space and the real space changes configuration on a constant basis – where the one follows the other and none of the two spaces is more important than the other. This approach to interface/surface design is more radical than the static interface designs like Philips International’s Living Memory (LiMe),(1) Itch’s Comment/In Future(2) at The Science Museum in London or MoMA’s Un-Private House Interactive Table(3) at MoMA. These all maintain their spatial configuration during interaction with a virtual design space projected either on the interface/surface or as a built in display. Only the virtual data space is manipulated, while the real space stays the same.
DiscussionSpace has, needless to say, a central role in the augmented space – not just as a passive container but also as the material that creates and controls the ‘link’ between the artifacts and the environment. The design space is not just an abstract diagram with a metaphorical relation to the real world as a simple visualization or simulation. It is also a real physical space filled with tangible real objects and a mixed reality where a virtual design space is augmented by a real space and the other way around.
The ultimate goal of virtual media (virtual reality or cyberspace) seems to be to remove the body – it is to liberate the mind from its constraints from being tied up to the body. In the realm of augmentation, on the other hand, the body plays a central role – it is to do all the things one usually does, just added a whole new range of potentials. In her book, Architecture from the Outside Elisabeth Grosz argues that the limit of different spatial ‘configurations’ is the limit of modes of corporeality.(4) In other words, one cannot imagine a space that cannot be occupied by some sort of body or corpus. As we have discussed in the first parts of this dissertation, this could be seen as a traditional paradox between object and space; that we cannot imagine a space without some sort of objects, just as one cannot imagine an object that is not positioned in space. To approach the possible characters and properties of space, Grosz investigates quite thoroughly the relationship between the space and the body, which could be a starting point for the theoretical construction of this project. If this corporeality is related to augmented media we could say that in a traditional context, a person would place objects on a table because they had some importance – he wanted to use them in a near future. In the realm of augmentation, on the other hand, such a simple action would trigger a whole range of actions, where relevant information would be presented on screens, lights in the room would be changed, the level of noise from the surroundings would be reduced and a wide range of data object would be made available for manipulation.
In his book ‘Constructions’, the philosopher constructor John Rajchman has a related argument. He argues that ‘bodily presence’ as is a key element in the development of an affective versus an effective space as I described it in the chapter Structure. Rajchman argues: “Our question may then be put in this way: How can ‘other geometries’ help change the very sense of ‘constructible space’ and so of what architecture may yet do? … The problem is then one of the body, its modes of spatialization and expression.”(5) So in-between Grosz’s insistence on the body and the will to augment our surrounds, there is a favorable position for overlapping a virtual and a real design space through the interaction between digital data and physical bodies.
The video prototype is a joint experiment between two overlapping PhD. projects (Thomas Leerberg and Tina Henriette Kristiansen), which both deal with the architectural consequences and possibilities of a computer embedded reality – both immersive and augmented.
On the DVD with video and image material in the back of this dissertation, there is a video that shows the different elements of the mock-up, a video that show different experiments of projecting data onto the spatial mesh and the interaction with the data and a slideshow with images from the process of constructing the mock-up.
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(1) Philips International BV (1997), 'Living Memory (LiMe)', in ID, August 2001, p. 164.
(2) Itch (2000), 'Comment/in future', in ID, June 2001, p. 54.
(3) MoMA (1999), 'Un-Private House Interactive Table', in ID, June 2000, p. 63.
(4) Grosz, Elisabeth (2001), 'Architecture from the Outside Essays on Virtual and Real Space', Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
(5) Rajchman, John (1998), Construction, Cambridge, MA USA: The MIT Press, p. 92-93. Rajchman is referring to Deleuze’s argument that ‘the other’ is the ‘expression of a possible world’.
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