DARV_Theme Meetings
Innovations-Hauptplatz Linz24th of February 2022
21st of April 2022
DARV Theme Meetings bring together professionals from Art, Culture, and Technology fields who share and discuss different aspects related to the presence and perception of Digital Art in public space.
In partnership with Innovationshauptplatz Linz, the DARV team aims to create a new hybrid space for sharing, questioning and experimentation, to foster processes of creation and production of Digital Art for urban environments.
The role of Digital Art in public context and its potential for evolving into a critical, social and environmental tool is explored from various perspectives during this meeting series.
Artists, curators, media theorists, UX designers and software developers share thoughts and know-how on related topics such as Performative interventions in public space and public participation, AR in public space, The social aspect of performance and the connection to public spaces, On the physical presence of digital art.
This event series is co-funded by Linz Kultur.
DARV Theme Meeting 1.0 will focus on Augmented Reality as a tool for artistic expression, its potential for transformation of the urban space and interaction with the public.
The DARV_Steps Untold project - performative interventions on stairways in the public space of Linz, will be briefly presented by Violeta Ivanova and Mihaela Kavdanska (artists, DARV core team). The project addresses the social pressure for optimisation and constant (self-) improvement, the continuous (re-) positioning and integration in new contexts. The DARV core team created a conceptual and media framework in which real and digital performers interact through an AR application, connecting different realities.
DARV’s experience of using Augmented Reality for artistic purposes in public space will be introduced in the context of an open discussion with Jakob Dietrich (Memphis, qujOchÖ, LINZ FMR).
Florian Weinrich, software developer (DARV core team) will introduce the DARV Augmented Reality Platform for rapid prototyping. Try outs of this open source browser based platform designed especially for artistic and educational purposes, will be possible.
Participants:
Violeta Ivanova (conceptual artist, DARV core team)
Mihaela Kavdanska (media artist, DARV core team)
Florian Weinrich (software developer, DARV core team)
Jakob Dietrich (Memphis, qujOchÖ, LINZ FMR)
DARV Theme Meeting 2.0 focuses on the current state of AR (Augmented Reality), open source AR, the presence of AR in platforms like Metaverse, and especially on the interaction with "analog" artistic practices.
The topic that Florian Weinrich (software developer and interaction designer, DARV core team) will reflect on during his presentation is "How open source XR can be democratized and used for artistic projects?"
"Most of the “valley companies” are working on vendor-locked XR. This development is great but has to be accessible by the broad public without having tracking, ads, or censorship implemented at its core. After presenting a framework (or nomenclature) for defining AR and VR, Florian Weinrich will talk about how DARV Online (AR App) fits in this metaverse and what future developments could look like." (F. Weinrich)
A short Q&A session will follow.
During the second part of this Theme Meeting, the DARV team will offer guidance through a hands-on experience. The participants in this workshop would try out different technical possibilities of using AR in order to share artistic vantage points in the public space of Linz.
We invite professionals and students from the Art & Culture scene to bring objects relevant to their work, statements, ideas, or personal life. The objects would be 3D scanned, photographed or video recorded, and introduced in Augmented Reality via DARV Online (AR app) at a location of their choice. This content authoring process will happen purely on phones or tablets and results in AR will be available immediately.
DARV Online is a collaborative augmented reality platform that combines software tools and concepts for AR experiences. Users can upload objects that are bound to a position in the real world (GPS, location-based AR) in a web interface. If users are in close proximity of those objects, they are placed in the space relative to them.
Furthermore, objects can be bound to image-based markers (marker-based AR). These objects are visible in AR as soon as users see the selected reference image. Objects include media files (photo, video, live streams) or 3D scans of rooms or physical objects. All parameters regarding the position and appearance of the objects in the virtual space can also be controlled in the web interface of DARV Online. DARV Online provides a documented web api, thus all of these values and objects can be uploaded and modified automatically. DARV Online offers an Android and iOS AR app for visualizing this data. In this app, it is possible to switch between "collections" of objects - all of these objects are then placed in space depending on the AR method (location or marker-based). Objects can also be uploaded through the mobile app. Once uploaded, they are placed in the users location and become immediately visible to everyone else. Image-based markers are also supported in this step and can be created by users in the app.