For all you realtime data lovers, a short update on the VersuS project.
Valentina Tanni has just prepared an article about artworks using the possibility to listen to emotional expressions on social networks (in the specifics, love), mentioning VersuS among the examples.
“On OCtober 15th in Rome the large protest stimulated by the Spanish Indignados and by the Occupy Wall Street movement took place along several different planes, traversing the city in different ways.
The analysis of the activity on social networks in the time/space of the protest shows with extreme clarity a continuous mutual penetration between digital and analog worlds, pushing us to hypothesize the possibility of a liquid, mutating fusion of the two dimensions, defining a new city in which the worlds of molecules and bits merge and flow together.
This observation becomes the opportunity to redefine the concept of publishing, transforming it into a domain which is able to traverse arts and sciences in the creation of knowledge, educatio, culture, information and awareness processes focused onto the enactment of concepts such as ubiquity, multiplicity and emergency.”
The project will be presented on Thursday November 3rd 2011 (at 12:00) in Turin, at the Fablab Italia in occasion of the Share Festival. (at Stazione Futuro, via Castelfidardo 22, Turin, Italy)
How do people express their emotions on social networks?
Information has become ubiquitously accessible, thus transforming our perception of cities and of the ways we work, learn, communicate and relate to other people.
VersuS analyzes the digital lives of cities to suggest a scenario in which digital and analog realities interweave and become one.
By performing realtime content harvesting on social networks we are able to perform natural language analyses on the conversations running between users, to peek into their emotions, wishes, expectations and desires.
We can make this information available and accessible using information visualizations, mobile applications and generative design artifacts, thus creating the tools which enable the creation of a new form of public space which merges the digital and analog lives of people, transforming them into active agents in a new idea of citizenship, enabling novel forms of expression and representation.
In “love VS turin”, we focus on an emotional approach, visualizing the expressions of love and passion of the citizens of the city of Turin, in a realtime collective conversation.
The visualization is put side by side with 3D objects produced using various digital fabrication techniques, and which represent a tangible representation of the emotional condition of the whole territory of the city of Turin.
“Love”can be replaced with other emotions, thus enabling scenarios of focal importance for ecology, public administrations, security, economy and the overall possibility to evaluate the wellness of the people on a certain territory.
VersuS is designed as an evocative tool for people, institutions and organizations, fostering the creation of new, positive, imaginaries for the future of our lives and our relation with the planet and with our fellow human beings.
It has been created together with the Fablab Italia and with the Piemonte Share Festival, in a transdisciplinary process in which arts and sciences collaborate to the creation of innovative, breakthrough, scenarios.
VersuS will be officially presented at the 2011 edition of the Piemonte Share Festival together with the Fablab Italia.
This outstanding initiative joined forces across the italian/french border, between the cities of Mondovì and Embrun, to restore two ancient churches that were left to decay and dedicate their renewed spaces to the creation of a process which, moving across arts, sciences, humanities and economy, researches the possibilities offered by technologies to promote innovation practices with a social impact and with opportunities for development for the people in the territories in which all of this takes place.
“uses the logos and packaging graphics of products as AR fiducial markers. A content management system allows attaching information and interactive experiences to logos, instantly transforming them into open, accessible, emergent spaces for communication. A mobile application allows consumers to use their smartphones to take pictures of the logos on the products’ labels and to use them to access the augmented reality layers of information.”
In Mondovì and Embrun we joined forces with the local public administrations and with a series of traditional producers of food with historical heritages reaching back hundreds of years to explore the possibilities for them offered by ubiquitous technologies.
Squatting Supermarkets at SMIR 2011
We found out an incredible opportunity for research and action: we produced packaging for these products which integrated markers which would allow for experiencing a series of augmented reality experiences in which the producers told the story of the product, the traditions behind them, and exposed the enormous values which are embodied in their local, traditional practices: complete sustainability, social integration, local development, an economic model which is oriented to an holistic idea of value, encompassing the enterprise, the people that work int it, the environment, society, traditions and a vision on the future.
The experiences also offered those assets which made Squatting Supermarkets such a breaktrhough experience: realtime infoaesthetic representations gather data from a multiplicity of sources and make it available using augmented reality directly from the product, including ecology and sustainability profiles, social network buzz, and the possibility to contribute to the overall information environment by openly providing ratings, comments and info-contributions, transforming the experience of consumption into an open, free dialogue among all stakeholders, in which new values, ethics and possibilities constantly emerge.
