Past Augmented: an imaginary app.
Richard Robertson
http://richmadethis.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/entry-for-image-remix-comp-mix-and-mash-2011/Description
The image I remixed is of Willis Street, Wellington, captured some 80 years ago. Now remixed as part of an imaginary application: Past Augmented. Today, we can walk down a street and see it as it once was, with applications like History Pin. But what if you could go further, and see what the people of the time saw, how they lived, what if Google Street View time travelled to capture this view! And then take the museum and the archive out on the streets. I think this image captures the theme of “Past and present, then and now, yesterday and tomorrow” very well. The fictional augmented reality app shows When the next tram is arriving, Where it is going, What the street is. The app has a search function, using the term 'entertainment' with related results and locations popping up. The resulting information panels are based on actual businesses I researched using the likes of Time Frames and Papers Past. I used out of copyright film's posters, and creative commons shared images as well as creating my design using open source graphics software: GIMP and Inkscape.Selected judges' comments
"Neat idea: I'd buy that app! Good to see the entrants research coming through in the image."
"This work immediately stood out as an highly imaginative concept. The idea comes from left-field, but answers the creative brief very well. The mix of old images and information, with a futuristic augmented-reality overlay made me think about the piece from two very different perspectives. Living in the past, but with modern tools, or wandering round the modern world with our view changed to that of the past. Both of these are engaging visions and fulfil one of the most fundamental purposes of art, and that is to help us see things in a new way."
