Museum Augmented Reality
Posted in Museum Expansionism, Technology on 17. Feb, 2009
I cannot describe how amazing this video is.
“Augmented Reality”, in the simplest terms possible, means having computer graphics and information overlay real time footage. So point the camera at something and the view screen will display all kinds of extras.
There’s a lot of possibilities here. One could be the chance for almost encyclopedic amount of information available right next to an object, being the next evolution in audio guides. The other being a simple collecting of information, stored onto your handheld for use later like collecting stamps. The interesting option is the mixing of this with Jane McGonigal’s idea of bringing “Alternate Reality Games” into a museum. (Alternate Augmented Reality Game… AARG?)
I imagine going into a museum with my handheld and start playing “Rameses Return”, a role playing game about the Egyptian king’s attempts to possess a new body. Or “MuseoDuel”, a Pokémon clone were you capture and collect museum objects to form your own fantasy museum/exhibition. Or “The Quartz Labyrinth”, every area has a set of puzzles that upon completion gives you time inside the main auditorium to compete for some kind of museum merchandise. I imagine all these game on disks that I can carry with me.
Think about the opportunities and options these creates and the whole new wing of curatorial theory this opens up. This technology is almost unlimited in scope in what museums can do with it.
This crew from Japan demonstrated their AR tech at Museums and the Web a few years ago, they were working with large scale markers to overlay data onto actual exhibits. See the video here: http://em21.nime.ac.jp/mrds/ (much of it is in Japanese, but you can get the idea…)