The last few weeks I have been designing and organising the exhibition State of the AR in cooperation with the AR+RFID Lab. ‘State of the AR’ is a retrospective exhibition of art and design that have been developed over the past three years in collaboration with the AR+RFID Lab at the KABK. The KABK’s AR+RFID Lab specializes in researching the usability of new visualization techniques for art and design. The Lab collaborates closely with the Bio-Robotics Lab of the TU-Delft. For the many projects of the AR+RFID Lab that have been established with the collaboration of artists and designers please visit http://www.arlab.nl/projects.html. A special component of the exhibition ‘State of the AR’ is the ‘Augmented Exhibition’ which can only be viewed with a special headset. For the operation of the headset an expert will be present each day from 16.00 to 18.00. At other times it is possible to watch along with an automated visitor. Visitors can also evoke 3D images on a monitor themselves, using AR-books. The long tradition of technical visualization methods that preceded AR can be seen at the ‘Laterna Magica’ formation, where pieces from the Magic Lantern Museum in Scheveningen are exhibited. For more details download the invitation and the programme.

The AR+RFID Lab presented the Reconstruction Lab installation, part of Sgraffito in 3D, in an item of RTL4 EditieNL about Augmented Reality. See the video.

This summer I have been assisting my girlfriend and colleague Melissa Coleman with her artist-in-residency project at V2_Lab. Media Vintage is a series of electronic textiles that contain audio memories. It remembers a time when technology was built to last and tries to imagine how digital data storage could be visual, physical and meaningful. Alpha is a suitcase in which you can weave temporary secret messages in Morse code. Bravo is a tapestry that sings a song from long ago when your fingers read the embroidered Braille. Charlie is a trench-coat that reads fabric punchcards and tells you stories from an old man's life. The work was presented at Ars Electronica Festival in Linz and then at the Test_Lab: Summer Sessions event in Rotterdam. Watch the of the Test_Lab: Summer Sessions - video-stream on the V2_ website.

Eric Schrijver and I are teaching a weekly Web Design class at the KABK, Royal Academy of Art, Den Haag. The introductory course ‘Web Design' focuses on mastering basic skills in the development of interactive content for the web. Student information and websites [under construction] can be found at kabk-webdesign.net.

AR+RFID Lab and students of the Royal Academy of Art, supported by Martin Sjardijn and I, developed a series of interactive installations for the Sweet Summer Night festival at the Kröller-Müller Museum. A large 360 degrees rotating display was placed in the park to watch 3D-animations superimposed over the real sculptures. Rollators where enhanced with laptops, cameras and augmented reality software. While walking with a rollator the public could meet illusionary reactions to the park and its statues. See the work process and some visual material at the AR+RFID Lab site + YouTube.

During the 11th edition of the GSDI World Conference in Rotterdam Geonovum presented the first Dutch Augmented Reality Atlas to celebrate the opening of the National GeoRegistry. The AR+RFID Lab was commissioned to develop this unique atlas. Wim van Eck made the 3D content and I designed the book. A small Flash-based AR-application can be found on nationaalgeoregister.nl and some movies of the conference at the GeoReport Channel.

The KABK's AR+RFID Lab and Joachim Rotteveel exhibited the Augmented Reality applications for cultural heritage at CHI Nederland Conference 2009, the Dutch conference for Human Computer Interaction and User Experience Design on the 11th of June in Leiden. The 3D-Popup Book and Reconstruction Lab were part of the exhibition Sgraffito in 3D at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen earlier this year.

Make a connection with the year 2030! ICTDelta, the annual congress organised by ICTRegie, was about how ICT can contribute to health, safety and prosperity in The Netherlands. Yolande Kolstee (AR+RFID Lab) and Joachim Rotteveel gave a talk and demo on innovative augmented reality applications in the cultural sector.

Test_Lab: Better Than Reality at V2_ on the 11th of december was an event on Augmented Reality featuring: CREW (Eric Joris and Vincent Jacobs), Joachim Rotteveel, Marnix de Nijs, Boris Debackere, and Jonas Hielscher. Test_Lab is a bi-monthly event at V2_ in Rotterdam which provides a platform for showcasing contemporary artistic research and development (aRt&D). I presented the augmented reality installations developed in cooperation with AR+RFiD Lab and part of the show Sgraffito in 3D in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen until the 4th of January. More on the event is to be found in the V2_ Archive.

The AR+RFID Lab participated in the Business of Design Week '08 event in Hong Kong. Wim van Eck presented AR-interfaces he made in cooperation with Joachim Rotteveel for the exhibition Sgraffito in 3D.

Press:
www.visionunion.com/article.jsp?code=200812160054
www.relva.com.cn/thread-3735-1-1.html

The opening in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen of the exhibition Sgraffito in 3D: Late medieval earthenware as viewed by Joachim Rotteveel on Saturday the 8th of November started the same time as the exhibitions 'Images of Erasmus' and 'From the collection Ploos van Amstel Knoef'. There were speeches by museum director Sjarel Ex, Secretary of State Frank Heemskerk the former mayor of Rotterdam Ivo Opstelten. AR+RFID Lab provided an ongoing performance with a head-mounted display in an augmented reality setting. Alexandra Gaba-van Dongen gave a lecture in the auditorium.

Veronica Publishing and Touching Media publish the world's first public magazine with markerless augmented reality technology. On Page 15 of the Dutch tv-guide TotaalTV you can find an advertisment for Sgraffito in 3D in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. While holding the magazine in front of a webcam a 3D-animation of an archeological pot appears on your screen and breaks into pieces. Download the software (PC only) and print the pages at the site Beyond Reality.

A special on Augmented Reality where Yolande Kolstee of the AR+RFID Lab presented a preview of the exhibition 'Sgraffito in 3D'. This event was organised by Sylvia Visser of Beyond Reality AKA Touching Media. More information on the AR Special can be found on the Picnic 2008 site.