Book Chapters by Rewa Wright
Advances in Creativity, Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Communication of Design, 2020
We propose a new method, technique, and practices for performing with mixed reality environments ... more We propose a new method, technique, and practices for performing with mixed reality environments and technologies, informed by embodiment and electro acoustics, and critically underscored by new materialism and posthumanism. Through the Contact projects, Wright and Howden explore a practice-based approach to live performance in mixed reality, through a novel method that combines gestural controllers, living plants and digital augments. This research investigates potential for multimodal performance in mixed reality (MR), using a novel technical set-up that combines of the HTC Vive with a Leap Motion mount, the MIDI Sprout interface for sensing the bio-electrical signals of plants, transposed to visual data in Touch Designer, and Unity 3D for generating digital augments.
Mobile Story Making in an Age of Smartphones, 2018
This chapter explores the emergent field of mobile augmented reality (AR) art as articulated on s... more This chapter explores the emergent field of mobile augmented reality (AR) art as articulated on smartphones and tablets, and the impact of these new technologies on participatory art practices. Examples for analysis are drawn from recent geo-located mobile art by influential practitioners J. C. Freeman, J. Cardiff and G. B. Miller, W. Pappenheimer and T. Thiel. All have recently produced smartphone art apps and mobile AR apps that advance the concept of a parallel reality to the real world. These artworks are examined to articulate further the technical processes that produce art as a differentiated socio-cultural experience to the conventional gallery-based model of spectatorship. This chapter argues that this experience sits within the emergent field of posthuman digital humanities, as discussed by the eminent theorist Rosi Braidotti (2013).
Augmented Reality Games II, 2019
This chapter examines gamification through selected artworks that deploy augmented reality (AR) t... more This chapter examines gamification through selected artworks that deploy augmented reality (AR) techniques. Gamification is approached as a form of ‘algorithmic culture’ in which algorithms can be, to varying degrees, both positively guiding or negatively coercing a user. After analyzing examples of gamification in the mobile entertainment industry, such as Snapchat and Pokemon GO, examples from contemporary media art that blend augmented reality techniques with algorithmic structures and tendencies are investigated. This research considers AR as a processual entity, rather than a discrete form or technical medium. Its interfaces are not simply dynamically engaged across the physical and the digital but entangled with social and cultural forces.
Experimental art deployed in the AR medium is contributing to a distinctly twenty-first-century r... more Experimental art deployed in the AR medium is contributing to a distinctly twenty-first-century reconfiguration of traditional perceptions of art, audience participation, and technological experience. This chapter examines an influential selection of experimental mobile augmented reality Art [ARt] in order to explore the progressive conceptual and ethical threads that are emerging from this relatively new but powerful cultural form. Using the concept of the ‘software assemblage’, the author traces the movement of AR beyond its native root system in the industrial, entertainment, and the engineering worlds, and toward the rhizome of radical practice that has come to define mobile ARt. A number of artists, critical engineers, theorists, historians, and participants to AR experiences, have in recent years been contributing to the emergent field of mobile ARt, and significant advances have been made. Clearly, this book is one of them. In the context of the second edition, the author pos...
Springer Series on Cultural Computing , 2022
We propose a new method, technique, and practices for performing with mixed reality environments ... more We propose a new method, technique, and practices for performing with mixed reality environments and technologies, informed by embodiment and electro acoustics, and critically underscored by new materialism and posthumanism. Through the 'Contact Projects', Wright and Howden explore a practice-based approach to live performance in mixed reality, through a novel method that combines gestural controllers, living plants and digital augments. This research investigates potential for multimodal performance in mixed reality (MR), using a novel technical setup that combines of the HTC Vive with a Leap Motion mount, the MIDI Sprout interface for sensing the bio-electrical signals of plants, transposed to visual data in Touch Designer, and Unity 3D for generating digital augments.
Augmented Reality Games II, 2019
This chapter examines gamification through selected artworks that deploy augmented reality (AR) t... more This chapter examines gamification through selected artworks that deploy augmented reality (AR) techniques. Gamification is approached as a form of ‘algorithmic culture’ in which algorithms can be, to varying degrees, both positively guiding or negatively coercing a user. After analyzing examples of gamification in the mobile entertainment industry, such as Snapchat and Pokémon GO, examples from contemporary media art that blend augmented reality techniques with algorithmic structures and tendencies are investigated. This research considers AR as a processual entity, rather than a discrete form or technical medium. Its interfaces are not simply dynamically engaged across the physical and the digital, but entangled with social and cultural forces as well.
This chapter explores the emergent field of mobile augmented reality (AR) art as articulated on s... more This chapter explores the emergent field of mobile augmented reality (AR) art as articulated on smartphones and tablets, and the impact of these new technologies on participatory art practices. Examples for analysis are drawn from recent geo-located mobile art by influential practitioners J. C. Freeman, J. Cardiff and G. B. Miller, W. Pappenheimer and T. Thiel. All have recently produced smartphone art apps and mobile AR apps that advance the concept of a parallel reality to the real world. These artworks are examined to articulate further the technical processes that produce art as a differentiated socio-cultural experience to the conventional gallery-based model of spectatorship. This chapter argues that this experience sits within the emergent field of posthuman digital humanities, as discussed by the eminent theorist Rosi Braidotti (2013).
Augmented Reality Art From an Emerging Technology to a Novel Creative Medium, 2018
Treading a fine line between intimacy and extension, there is no doubt that mobile media devices ... more Treading a fine line between intimacy and extension, there is no doubt that mobile media devices such as tablets and smartphones, have been making a serious con- tribution to the expressive power of human bodies. The threshold that has tradi- tionally separated human and machine has shifted, so that the virtual and physical are no longer separate topologies, but rather embodied together in the immediacy of the everyday: the body, like the smartphone, is an interface. But that is not all, because, bit by bit (or byte by byte) mobile media devices have been turning us into post-humans (Hayles 1999; Braidotti 2013). It is not that the devices are some kind of Cyborgian appendage to the human body, although an argument for this could certainly be made. Rather, these new threads weaving themselves into the geo- cultural fabric of humanity are created through the increasingly dominant organi- sational force of software. The data network, cloud, or Internet have many uses in life, and perhaps the least of these is artistic. Yet, it is art that is now being revolutionised by the same data networks that produced pervasive computing. Through these innovations artists have been given the capacity to transport audi- ences into complex meshworks of narrative and experience. The pervasive use of smartphones has created many new lines of critical inquiry that intersect with notions of post-humanism, such as the shaping of human culture through a myriad of physical, embodied, and perceptual connections with the technological machines we use regularly. One such line of inquiry is posited by the radical and highly experimental artistic practice of mobile Augmented Reality Art [ARt].
Conference Papers by Rewa Wright
SIGGRAPH ASIA Art Gallery/Art Papers, 2019
When we feel and sense through machines, are we still ourselves? In a mixed reality where embodie... more When we feel and sense through machines, are we still ourselves? In a mixed reality where embodied actions and blinding visions are part woman/part machine, the tactile surface of plants is a portal that conjures augmented materialities into existence.
Experimental art deployed in the Augmented Reality (AR) medium is contributing to a reconfigurati... more Experimental art deployed in the Augmented Reality (AR) medium is contributing to a reconfiguration of traditional perceptions of interface, audience participation, and perceptual experience. Artists, critical engineers, and programmers, have developed AR in an experimental topology that diverges from both industrial and commercial uses of the medium. In a general technical sense, AR is considered as primarily an information overlay, a datafied window that situates virtual information in the physical world. In contradistinction, AR as experimental art practice activates critical inquiry, collective participation, and multimodal perception. As an emergent hybrid form that challenges and extends already established 'fine art' categories, augmented reality art deployed on Portable Media Devices (PMD’s) such as tablets & smartphones fundamentally eschews models found in the conventional 'art world.' It should not, however, be considered as inscribing a new 'model:...
Ko Maungawhau ki runga (1) is a performative research project by the author on the site of a form... more Ko Maungawhau ki runga (1) is a performative research project by the author on the site of a former 17th century Maori Pa (fortified village) in Auckland, New Zealand. It is a subset of the long- term project Do we see in algorithms? and uses location aware technology to deploy augments at precise nodes in a meaningful location. Accessed on foot, the augments explore multiple strategies for engagement between Global Positioning Systems (GPS), the smartphone as an art interface, user, artist and site.
In certain paradigms from commercial and engineering practice, migrated to media art, Mixed Reali... more In certain paradigms from commercial and engineering practice, migrated to media art, Mixed Reality (MR) is often encountered as augments viewed through a screen display. Understood as both informatic and digital, augments are supplementary content that enhance a human experience of 'reality'. My project cultivates a contrasting view of augments as emergent via human and nonhuman processes that entangle digital as well as physical spaces. Through a practice-based approach located in media art, this research contributes an artistic formulation – the software assemblage – supported by a suite of techniques and methods that attempt to re-assemble MR as an expanded practice that occurs both on and off screen. The software assemblages produced in this research, draw upon Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s machinic assemblage, a relational ecology of material elements organized by movement, as well as Karen Barad’s concept of agential realism, where nonhuman matter enacts situate...
ACM SIGGRAPH , 2019
When we feel and sense through machines, are we still ourselves? In a mixed reality where embodie... more When we feel and sense through machines, are we still ourselves? In a mixed reality where embodied actions and blinding visions are part woman/part machine, the tactile surface of plants is a portal that conjures augmented materialities into existence.
Post-Screen 2016: International Festival of Art, New Media and Cybercultures
Software may have taken command (Manovich 2013), but it is far from in control.
Technical objects... more Software may have taken command (Manovich 2013), but it is far from in control.
Technical objects proliferate not simply as ‘tools’ but as crucially non-human
elements in a computational assemblage (Johnston, 2008). Cross modality
confronts us at every turn — not only of the human sensorium, but in the
technical devices we hold dear. Smartphones and Tablets all offer Augmented
Reality (AR) while games consoles like the PlayStation and Nintendo Wii offer
consumer level Virtual Reality (VR) features. However, there is another category
that has been neglected in favour of its hyperbolically marketed relatives.
Augmented Virtuality, across the full spectrum defined in Milgram & Kishino’s
(1994) ‘Reality-Virtuality Continuum’ is with us every day; however, too often it is
mis-recognised as either AR or VR. Augmented Virtuality (AV) is the congruous
registration of physical elements in a virtual world, in real time, across x, y, and
z axis’. There, AV is an inverse case of AR, where the world being augmented
is primarily virtual, and the content used to augment is “real”. However simplified
this distinction is, Milgram & Kishino do note that Augmented Virtuality is
a “grey area” (1994, p. 4) at the centre of their taxonomy, complicated by the
fact that, at the time they wrote, Mixed Reality was at an early stage of emergence
and only accessible from the scientific laboratory. The situation today is
far from that, where we find a growing number of consumer devices equipped
with some form of AR, VR, or AV.
Using examples from recent experimental installation art, this paper clarifies
AV as distinct from its more famous cousins, AR and VR. In the process,
questions of cross modality, embodied interaction, materiality and the everyday-
virtual come into play.
In a general technical sense, Augmented Reality (AR) is considered as primarily a virtual overlay... more In a general technical sense, Augmented Reality (AR) is considered as primarily a virtual overlay, a datafied window that situates visual or textual information in the physical world. In contradistinction, AR as experimental art practice activates critical inquiry, collective participation, and multimodal perception. Experimental art deployed in the AR medium is contributing to a reconfiguration of traditional perceptions of interface, audience participation, and perceptual experience. This paper explores such experimental AR art practices as examples of 'software assemblage,' a materialist conception that facilitates the movement of AR beyond the conventional empirical borders of the engineering world and toward a poetic re-configuration of AR as experimental art practice.
21st International Symposium on Electronic Art, ISEA 2015, Vancouver, B.C. August 2015.
As an emergent hybrid form that challenges and extends already established 'fine art' categories,... more As an emergent hybrid form that challenges and extends already established 'fine art' categories, augmented reality art deployed on portable mobile devices ( tablets & smartphones) fundamentally eschews models found in the conventional 'art world.' It should not, however, be considered as inscribing a new 'model:' rather, this paper posits that the hybrids advanced by mobile augmented reality art [AR(t)] are closely related to the notion of the 'machinic assemblage' ( Deleuze & Guatarri 1987), where a deep capacity to re-assemble marks each new art-event. This paper suggests a new discursive formulation to deal with this type of hybrid art practice, positing the notion of the 'software assemblage.'
Proceedings of 'PostScreen 2014, Device Medium Concept.' Conference held at the University of Lisbon 28 November 2014. Version 2 of that paper.
Art deployed using the augmented reality medium is doing so from a micropolitics that distances i... more Art deployed using the augmented reality medium is doing so from a micropolitics that distances itself from the uses of these same technologies elsewhere, such as in gaming, advertising, or entertainment paradigms. However, the current terms used to describe this type of artwork do not adequately engage the relational and material specificities of the AR medium as it collides with an emergent thread of interventionist, activist and/or narrative art practice. To describe this emergent hybrid situational artwork, this paper proposes the term software assemblage. The augmented reality artworks I will describe as software assemblages, mobilise experimental processes to examine the relational intensities emerging between the AR medium, the ubiquitous devices with which we have become intimate, and our human social assemblages, specifically in this early 21st century capitalist milieu.
Proceedings of the 19th International Symposium on Electronic Art, ISEA2013, Sydney Edited by Kathy Cleland, Laura Fisher and Ross Harley Published by ISEA International, the Australian Network for Art & Technology and the University of Sydney ISBN: 978-0-646-91313-1
Ko Maungawhau ki runga [1] is a performative research project by the author on the site of a form... more Ko Maungawhau ki runga [1] is a performative research project by the author on the site of a former 17th century Maori Pa (fortified village) in Auckland, New Zealand. It is a subset of the longterm project Do we see in algorithms? and uses location aware technology to deploy augments at precise nodes in a meaningful location. Accessed on foot, the augments explore multiple strategies for engagement between Global Positioning Systems (GPS), the smartphone as an art interface, user, artist and site.
Journal Articles by Rewa Wright
The 21st century presents us with a new paradigm for current art practices. In the context of a ... more The 21st century presents us with a new paradigm for current art practices. In the context of a post-gallery milieu, interactive topologies have emerged, deploying Augmented Reality (hereafter, AR) on handheld devices to create site-specific artwork. My purpose in this paper is to explore key mobile AR Artworks, relating these to site-specific installation in a post-gallery context. Notions of embodiment, interactivity, and mobility with reference to research in computer science, new media theory, and conceptual art inform this exploration.
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Book Chapters by Rewa Wright
Conference Papers by Rewa Wright
Technical objects proliferate not simply as ‘tools’ but as crucially non-human
elements in a computational assemblage (Johnston, 2008). Cross modality
confronts us at every turn — not only of the human sensorium, but in the
technical devices we hold dear. Smartphones and Tablets all offer Augmented
Reality (AR) while games consoles like the PlayStation and Nintendo Wii offer
consumer level Virtual Reality (VR) features. However, there is another category
that has been neglected in favour of its hyperbolically marketed relatives.
Augmented Virtuality, across the full spectrum defined in Milgram & Kishino’s
(1994) ‘Reality-Virtuality Continuum’ is with us every day; however, too often it is
mis-recognised as either AR or VR. Augmented Virtuality (AV) is the congruous
registration of physical elements in a virtual world, in real time, across x, y, and
z axis’. There, AV is an inverse case of AR, where the world being augmented
is primarily virtual, and the content used to augment is “real”. However simplified
this distinction is, Milgram & Kishino do note that Augmented Virtuality is
a “grey area” (1994, p. 4) at the centre of their taxonomy, complicated by the
fact that, at the time they wrote, Mixed Reality was at an early stage of emergence
and only accessible from the scientific laboratory. The situation today is
far from that, where we find a growing number of consumer devices equipped
with some form of AR, VR, or AV.
Using examples from recent experimental installation art, this paper clarifies
AV as distinct from its more famous cousins, AR and VR. In the process,
questions of cross modality, embodied interaction, materiality and the everyday-
virtual come into play.
Journal Articles by Rewa Wright
Technical objects proliferate not simply as ‘tools’ but as crucially non-human
elements in a computational assemblage (Johnston, 2008). Cross modality
confronts us at every turn — not only of the human sensorium, but in the
technical devices we hold dear. Smartphones and Tablets all offer Augmented
Reality (AR) while games consoles like the PlayStation and Nintendo Wii offer
consumer level Virtual Reality (VR) features. However, there is another category
that has been neglected in favour of its hyperbolically marketed relatives.
Augmented Virtuality, across the full spectrum defined in Milgram & Kishino’s
(1994) ‘Reality-Virtuality Continuum’ is with us every day; however, too often it is
mis-recognised as either AR or VR. Augmented Virtuality (AV) is the congruous
registration of physical elements in a virtual world, in real time, across x, y, and
z axis’. There, AV is an inverse case of AR, where the world being augmented
is primarily virtual, and the content used to augment is “real”. However simplified
this distinction is, Milgram & Kishino do note that Augmented Virtuality is
a “grey area” (1994, p. 4) at the centre of their taxonomy, complicated by the
fact that, at the time they wrote, Mixed Reality was at an early stage of emergence
and only accessible from the scientific laboratory. The situation today is
far from that, where we find a growing number of consumer devices equipped
with some form of AR, VR, or AV.
Using examples from recent experimental installation art, this paper clarifies
AV as distinct from its more famous cousins, AR and VR. In the process,
questions of cross modality, embodied interaction, materiality and the everyday-
virtual come into play.
Modulating the bio-electrical impulses from a living agave plant, I co-compose a live soundtrack via a careful manipulation of its leaves. Ultra-sonic microphones embedded in an adjacent green wall add a sonic wash as I move my body across the room. Constructed in the Unity gaming engine and programmed in C#, digital augments fill both screens. The screen on the left is grayscale, revealing an altered embodied vision, transposed to my gaze via the Leap Motion interface attached to the HTC Vive head mounted display. The screen on the right is attached to another parallel Unity system, where I employ a second Leap motion interface to trace my hand’s micro-gestures as they swish through the air. Here, the Leap motion is both a gestural controller and a look-through camera.
In this performance, entanglements between modes of matter (infrared, bio-electrical, fleshy, and digital) shift constellations of bodies-plants-data, as they dynamically and rhythmically align in motion.
Performed at the Black Box (UNSW Art & Design), Sydney Australia, November 2018.