SPATIAL STORYTELLING

With 3D becoming normcore (*) and reality being there for your to remix – spatial storytelling will become key in an era of spatial computing where technology is more and more seamlessly blending into the world.  

Matthieu Rouiff is the guy behind the Background App BG that easily allows you to erase the background of an image. Something that has been done by an army of more or less skilled photoshop users. Currently Rouiff is playing around with Video, touching Machine Learning and AR (see GIF above). Therefore he is at the core of my field of interest: remixing reality or realities – depending on your point of view.

Some folks on Twitter have rightly pointed to the famous music video by the Band A-ha: Take on me. It is not the only music video that introduces concepts and ideas that can be easily re-created by a 5 year old with a smartphone these days. Apart from this technical aspect, these videos like many other fictional products in the context of popular culture obviously guide us into the near future.

You need phantasy and a basic understanding of some concepts in order to grasp and understand the wider implications. But if you start thinking about a mesh of the world, spatial computing, in situ information, face or body or building detection, 3d objects and several layers of visual information on top of the very real reality, you get a very first idea. 

Actually – everything is already here. You have seen Snapchats landmark filters, 6d.ai´s AR cloud mesh fusion, you might have read about the Oculus quest and the maximum play space. Google adding AR results to search. And Niantics new endeavour Wizards Unite. 

One of my personal favs: Let´s think about the procedural city generator – in real time, with a real time landmark detection. You would walk through a strange land. Constantly. With no chance of ever going back or forward to a familiar place. Sounds like a nightmare? Yes, indeed. Unknown pleasures. Here we come. 

Had a dream last night

How will we tell, coin or explain places, buildings, people and objects in a world that no longer relies on simply one level of reality? What rules will be agreed on? Who will lead the way? When will we transition from the smartphone era to the next era? Where is the perfect place to start mixing realities? Why?