The idea of a certain wearable/mobile Augmented Reality is the artifice by which focus of this excersize is shifted across varying scales. It allows dynamic and tangible interactions within the proposed scheme, between the physical world, the created virtual, and the indefinable realm of the psyche or imagination.
Several aspects of the project amalgamate to produce a poetic narrative (illustrated by the audio-visual collage) which becomes the basis of the design. Below I have outlined the areas of research which inform the design, beginning with the establishment of the scenario within the context of the gothic novel, through to the employment of the Augmented Reality software.
The Gothic Context
Gothic literature blossomed at a time when women needed a device in which they could grasp at emancipation from the patriarchal society in which they found themselves in. The female "gothic victim" blossomed with the emergence of female authors and a new type of feminine protagonist. Around this time Victorian women were highly decorated and corseted. “...the entire female body was one piece of jewellery, erotically stylized, deformed and alienated from its biological functions…”[1] However, for the first time in the history of literature, women were able to band together and write what their female readers had long wanted – an escape from reality. The literature became about breaking down the gender hierarchies and releasing the repression of female sexuality.
“(Gothic novelists were) constructing a series of ideologies – a set of literary masquerades and poses – that would allow their female character and by extension their female readers a fictitious mastery over what they considered an oppressive social and political system…”[2]
This creation of identity is poignantly represented by the classic symbol of a mask which becomes the first scale in which the entire scheme participates. The mask affords the gothic protagonist the choice of either concealment (a reaction to repression and marginalization) or disguise (the transformation into a character of choice) and operates in reality at a scale of 1:1. This physical prototype is to be worn by the gothic heroine to place her within a sub-cultural group of neo-Goths. Although this level is tangible both physically and symbolically, the masked character performs ultimately within a stage set of Augmented Reality, through the setup of interactive dramaturgy.
Augmented Reality and Interactive Dramaturgy to Embody the Gothic
In this case the application of Augmented Reality through the iPhone sets up the multi-media dramaturgic performance space. Digital technology is not the creator of hybrid spaces[3], but certainly creates a fluid and interactive communication and information exchange environment. Since the Drama of Antiquity, interactive dramaturgy has been employed to convey shared experiences, practical knowledge and religious beliefs within countless civilizations. The Middle-Ages saw the development of Gothic Cathedrals. “The Churches, especially the more prosperous ones, with their suggestive use of architecture and light, were always hybrid locations, spaces that attempted, beyond their physical presence, to represent the inconceivable, the immaterial, the idea and to unite both of these levels. The believer found him- or herself at the intersection between the real and the virtual in an intermediate reality.”[4]
Theatricality plays across all scale changes involved in the overall piece of design. As we move away from the physical, through the character’s psyche, Augmented Reality helps to practically illustrate the schematics of the narrative which acts out the “virtual scale” component.
Augmented Reality – the Practical Application
The nature of the story requires quite a personal exchange between the characters, thus I wanted to maintain a degree of face-to-face interaction[5] between the heroine and her on-looker. The mask-wearing female is the passive participant at the point of communication. Hidden behind her created identity, she must be approached in order to begin the performance. The active participant/“audience” yields the iPhone, which becomes the key to the Augmented Reality experience. This face-to-face contact works well with the iPhone as opposed to a Head-mounted Device which restricts the field of view of the wearer to about 30° and hinders natural communication through potential nuances such as body language.[6]
The body is a primary performance device, and since Augmented Reality is the addition of Real Life and Virtual Reality, it seemed piquant to include the protagonist’s own physical presence in the workings of the Augmented Reality Design. Thus her “tattoo” places her (voluntarily) in my deviant gothic sub-culture. The iPhone, when directed at the image, peals away the mask which disguises her face - to reveal her true identity. In this way the costuming and masking is removed. However, this is an exclusive action – she must permit the user access to her “marker” in order to strip off the mask. The entire action becomes irrelevant as soon as the actor loses the right to her identity.
This loss of “identity” is fabricated through the device of an animation of the character in her raw, un-adorned state. The iPhone played its role in this stage of the drama, as it was used to capture the moment before the mask was applied.
The concept of a marker which “unlocks” the performance of the reveal is made possible by the Augmented Reality software Junaio. Like other systems, it uses channels which enable relatively straight-forward user-generated information to be accessed. Therefore the narrative “Gothic Deviations” is made possible by a channel which recognises the “tattoo” which then unlocks the animation by which the character’s identity is stripped.
The Success of My Proposal
My original conception of this Augmented Reality fragment of the design has proved to be successful in terms of its overall completion. The process works, however due to slight technical issues it is not as poetic as it could be.
The first issue is arose as a need to solve the issue of the “pealing” back of the physical mask and how to represent the unadorned face. Several options were considered such as an image-based solution such as one or more still photographs of the face which were activated by the marker. A video-capture of the physical person placed the character in context in the real world in a more lyrical way. This was not only due to the 3-D qualities of the footage, but also the fact that it afforded the data a temporal quality; the idea of the real world continuing in its own pace in the background. The quality of the image and the length of the animation come into question here as it is not as smooth and rich as it could be. Also, the playback is affected by uncontrollable elements like access to the internet.
The marker was the major technical obstacle to overcome in the scheme. Several images were rejected by Junaio itself, yet they were under the recommended KB limit. Others were accepted by the channel-creator yet failed when tested. The “tattoo” idea is fundamental to the design and the issue of image recognition must be addressed in the later stages. Testing of a tattoo on the character’s skin failed, but this is probably due to the image submitted on the channel in conjunction with a poor “tattoo” rendered on the skin. Also, an issue with the image could be a lack of detail and poor lighting, which stem from the limitations of the iPhone technology itself. These obstacles need to be further manoeuvred in order to progress with a more refined narrative.
Another area which was lost in the fabrication of the work was the aspect of the imagination – the aspect of the narrative in which the heroine falls inward into her own created world, depicted in the narrative. This issue could be addressed via imaged based information, i.e drawings/photographs, or included in the process of the revealing of the mask, so that these images serve to set the scene of the drama before the mask is removed, thus enriching the overall interactive dramaturgy of the piece.
Taking my Dramaturgic Augmented Reality Further
The narrative proposed addressed the scales of virtual reality, the imagination, and physical reality at a scale of 1:1. Other scale changes relating to the entire scheme of “Gothic Deviations” are yet to be explored, and have the potential to enrich the dramatic world of my designs.
Trial work for submission A involved a deployment of a model through the Junaio Channel which was activated through a marker. I would like to continue this idea through with a different marker, that of a detail of my jewellery box, which brings up a rendered model of a virtual mask. This would complement scale two, which operates at the scales of 1:4 and 1:1.
Scale four is the design of a physical performance space nestled into an existing site. A geo-tagged POI giving cultural and design information about the physical building/institution would complement the scheme and firmly anchor all my Augmented Reality in the real world in a real location, and set the scene for the entire body of work.
Bibliography
Farneti Cera, D., Becker, V., Albanesi, R. (1992). Jewels of fantasy : costume jewelry of the 20th century. New York : Abrams
Hagebölling, H. (ed.).(2004). Interactive Dramaturgies: New Approaches in Multimedia Content and Design. Cologne: Academy of Media Arts Cologne
Höhl, W. (2009). Interactive Environments with Open-Source Software. 3D Walkthroughs and Augmented Reality for Architects with Blender 2.43, DART 3.0 and ARToolKit 2.72. Vienna, Austria: Springer-Verlag/Wien.
Long Hoeveler, D. (1998). Gothic feminism : the professionalization of gender from Charlotte Smith to the Brontës.University Park, Pa. : Pennsylvania State University Press
Billinghurst, M., Belcher D., Gupta A., and Kiyokawa K.. (2003). Communication Behaviours in Colocated Collaborative AR Interfaces. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction 16, no.3, 395-424
Fjeld, M. (2003). Augmented Reality – Usability and Collaborative Aspects. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction 16, no.3, 387-393
Kooper R., and MacIntyre B. (2003). Browsing the Real-World Wide Web: Maintaining Awareness of Virtual Information in an AR Information Space. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction 16, no.3, 425-446.
Thomas, B.H., Quirchmayr G., and Piekarski W. (2003) Through-Walls Communication for Medical Emergency Services International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction 16, no.3 477-498
[1] Deanne Farneti Cera, Vivienne Becker, Rinaldo Albanesi. (1992). Jewels of fantasy : costume jewelry of the 20th century. New York : Abrams (1992), 52
[2] Long Hoeveler, Diane. Gothic feminism : the professionalization of gender from Charlotte Smith to the Brontës.University Park, Pa. : Pennsylvania State University Press (1998), 6
[3] Hagebölling, Heide, ed. Interactive Dramaturgies: New Approaches in Multimedia Content and Design. Cologne: Academy of Media Arts Cologne, (2004), 10
[4] Hagebölling, Interactive Dramaturgies, 10.
[5] Billinghurst, Mark, Daniel Belcher, Arnab Gupta, and Kiyoshi Kiyokawa. “Communication Behaviours in Colocated Collaborative AR Interfaces.” International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction 16, no.3 (2003), 395
[6] Billinghurst, Belcher, Gupta, and Kiyokawa. “Communication Behaviours in Colocated Collaborative AR Interfaces”, 411
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