An Immersive Augmented Reality Helmet

TECHNARTE is an international conference on art and technology that has been taking place in Bilbao since 2006. It gathers experts and artists who push the limits of creativity and pursue endless possibilities in contemporary art, which is not unlike our mission at The Creators Project. This year's TECHNARTE selected CORE Labs Beijing to present their latest augmented reality work, developed at the HACK Lab.

CORE Labs is a laboratory with a focus on the development of technology in arts. This Spanish arts organization headquartered in Barcelona set up their Beijing studio a couple years ago, and are now working on the edge of sound and visual arts. The studio is located in the HuanTie Art District, which is close to 798, and the military style building in which it is housed fits CORE Labs experimental style perfectly.

CORE Labs is formed by artists and engineers who contribute to contemporary creation through their own activity, an organization that provides artist residencies, and a platform for new media technology exchange between Spain and China. It is a prolific and active group in the local experimental arts scene. It consists of HACK Lab and VIDEO Lab. The HACK LAB hosts all CORE's research projects that are related to the distribution of and debate on new technologies, digital media and the internet. It also develops computer applications for augmented reality productions. The Video Lab focuses on avant-garde digital languages, public presence, and synchronization between video and music. Besides all this, CORE Labs also collaborates with cultural organizations for exhibitions and panel discussions. They host a regular talk at the UCCA, where The Creators Project-Beijing event will be held this year.

At TECHNARTE, CORE Labs presented ARWired, a proof of concept that attempts to set up an immersive AR environment allowing for a greater freedom of movement inside augmented reality settings. The project merges two previous projects developed at the HACK Lab: an ARHemlet equipped with a camera, headphones and screen and Wired, an interactive audiovisual processing software. Using AR and the Arduino, ARWired creates a synchronized interactive application that takes information about the surrounding environment captured via the helmet’s camera and a sensor board placed in front of the user to trigger realtime 3D vector graphics and audio. The user, in turn, receives an augmented version of his surroundings.

The current prototype looks like an immersive DDR for your fingers, and minus the helmet, screen and giant QR code marker, the audiovisual interactive experience is not unlike mobile apps we’ve seen for things like Guitar Hero or other music games. Still, as a first iteration and proof of concept, it’s both intriguing and promising.

See the video below:

ARWired uses:
Hardware: Arduino, pressure sensors, LCD screen, headphones, webcam.
Software: ActionScript3, FLARManager, Processing.