Ana Maria Moutinho

ArCHI: engaging with museum objects spatially through whole body movement

We explore body movement as a medium. We investigate how body movement may help define the quality of human experience in particular, when mediated through pervasive digital technologies. In this paper, we present an interactive installation developed and implemented in a museum context. We outline the iterative design methodology and compare data from the deployment. We highlight in particular the importance of taking into account full body and performative interactions as an important factor of human experience. We integrate approaches that explore the embodied, and the performative nature of human interactions and describe an attempt to develop new ways when designing for emergent experience and interactivity enabled through depth sensing (with Kinect) that go beyond traditionally applied methods within Human Computer Interaction (HCI). While the users study was successful in identifying emergent issues related to embodied interactions and social behavior patterns in the museum, our analysis highlights influences on usage and behavior patterns including the social dimension, the physical setting, and the type of body movement it affords. The paper concludes that we should rethink the relationship between the body and space through mediated interactions. The implementation outcome demonstrates the need to develop a better understanding of performative interactions generated through full body movement and its subjective spatial relationships. We suggest that these attempts will help inform further experiments with depth sensing and will have a critical impact on current research in HCI, and on future attempts to developing digitally mediated interactions when designing responsive environments in a social public setting.

MagicFace: Stepping into Character through an Augmented Reality Mirror

Augmented Reality (AR) is coming of age and appearing in various smartphone apps. One emerging AR type uses the front-facing camera and overlays a users face with digital features that transform the physical appearance, making the user look like someone else, such as a popstar or a historical character. However, little is known about how people react to such stepping into character and how convincing they perceive it to be. We developed an app with two Egyptian looks, MagicFace, which was situated both in an opera house and a museum. In the first setting, people were invited to use the app, while in the second setting they came across it on their own when visiting the exhibition. Our findings show marked differences in how people approach and experience the MagicFace in these different contexts. We discuss how realistic and compelling this kind of AR technology is, as well as its implications for educational and cultural settings.

VisAge: augmented reality for heritage

In this paper we describe the VisAge project, which explored how a community-based Augmented Reality (AR) system could be used to tell stories and cultural histories about urban environments. Our work focussed on two main themes --- user engagement and immersiveness of the experience. To address the first theme, we developed an online portal where anybody could upload digital content and create their own stories using routes through a physical environment. To address the second theme, we developed a flexible, reconfigurable mobile platform to investigate different types and kinds of displays. The performance of the system was assessed in a series of workshops, which have provided insights to inform the development of future systems.

AUR: Augmented Urban Reality

In this paper we present the Augmented Urban Reality Project (AUR), developed by University College London in association with augmented reality specialists, Holition (UK). We designed and implemented an urban experience, which combines two screens during the Arts Trail in Leytonstone (UK): 1) the situated urban screen enabling sharing of photos taken by artists and the local community and displaying them on the high street, 2) a mobile screen, with which users can a) select a destination or an art venue, b) through an AR view the user will be guided by a walking 3D digital character, which is superimposed on the real world, c) take photos and share selected ones with the situated screen. The diversity of the local communities and the active art scene provide a unique opportunity for the research to examine interactions between the communities within the town centre.