#memory shadows

[digitalartstudent-blog]

MemoryShadows - QR Code wall

In MemoryShadows we planned our project as a walkthrough, to go from past through to present and even on to future. For the end of the installation, we were thinking about how people could add their own stories, and memories to the wall. A form of digital tagging. Almost like graffiti tagging!

So we came up with the idea of having a space at the end of the walkthrough where there would be shadows painted on the walls, and people could print off their own unique QR codes on stickers and add their picture and a story to it using Tales of Things, then they can stick this QR code to the wall. That way leaving their own story for others to scan with their phones and read.

This posed quite a few logistics problems, so we came up with the idea of having a sort of vending machine there. You could pay a small donation, and like a photo booth the machine would have a camera inside it and take your picture, then you could add words to it using the keyboard, and then it would print out the QR code for you. Alternatively, you could choose to print out a blank QR code and use the Tales of Things app on your smart phone to do it yourself.

Here Karla made a physical mock up of the QR code space.

The stickers placed on the wall in the space will not be permanent. Sometimes the stickers may fall off, or someone might stick another QR code on top of your one. We quite like this, because memories aren't permanent either. But so we can retain this information somehow, we thought that through the vending machine and Tales of Things, we could, using the twitter account @WallOfDevonport, tweet all of Tales that get posted. Therefore we'd have a timeline of all the stories people attached to the wall, that would be there even if the QR codes weren't, we'd still have a record.

[digitalartstudent-blog]

Dealing with Layar

Success! We managed to get a prototype working in Layar!

Myself and Paul were set with the task of making a prototype in Layar. We initially were going to use geotagged Layars, then realised that this would be inaccurate and inappropriate for what we needed. We used Layar's "vision-based AR" capabilities:

"Vision-based AR uses many of these same sensors to virtually display digital content in context with real-world objects - like magazines, postcards or product packaging - by tracking the visual features of these objects."

Layar website

So I took pictures of Paul and another coursemate (Chris Tough), then created their silhouettes on Photoshop. I then uploaded this picture to Layar:

Paul and I then added the full colour PNGs as buttons on Layar over their respective shadows. This caused some problems, adding the quotes was even more of a problem. In the end we had to add them to the original colour PNGs, like so:

We then made the buttons links... They connect to Twitter and a user can post to twitter the following message:

"I just used Layar to discover the historical and social background of the Devonport Wall! #MemoryShadows @WallOfDevonport"

I created the twitter account @WallOfDevonport and followed a lot of Plymouth related twitter accounts, specifically people from Devonport and departments/teachers from Devonport High School for Boys. I was hoping to get a response from someone with their own personal stories so we could use something more authentic than the quotes we used in our Layar demo (which were from internet searches). Here's some evidence of my search:

Sadly I didn't get any responses apart from the one from the Devonport Guildhall Facebook page.

So, after much trials and tribulations, we got Layar working. Here's some pictures and screenshots of the finished demo:

[digitalartstudent-blog]

Memory Shadows - the space and shadow analysis

Our architects have been working on the "space" the actual site where the installation will be housed. The idea is to use part of the wall to create a timeline, where a person could walk "through" the wall from past to present.

We made a couple of videos to show how the attraction (the shadow appearing on the wall when someone walks past) would work;

Shadows on the "Wall" (stop motion) from konstantinos Venis on Vimeo.

Shadow example video created by Tom Piercey

The problem with shadows is they're very hard to create in natural light. We want it to be unobtrusive, but for the shadow to show up at all the projector/light source will have to be quite strong and therefore more obtrusive that we first envisioned. But then, this will make it hard for the person to ignore the attraction, and hopefully encourage them to follow and visit the installation.