Spontaneous Guerrilla AR Projections
I find it fun to hit the streets at night and create spontaneous Augmented Reality projections.
What does that mean?
I take a small projector and a large battery pack and look for structures to digitally map; I then use the structure as a canvas for the projection of a temporary video artwork. This can be challenging – I have to work fast because my battery gives me just over an hour for mapping, design and projection. I also have to contend with bright ambient street lighting, obstructions, strange projection angles and traffic.
I began my projections in Greece during the pandemic lockdown – I first projected a giant candle on a nearby building to encourage people to celebrate the Greek Orthodox Easter Holiday from the safety of their balconies. This is one of the most important festive days of the year in Greece and people were disheartened by its cancellation.
I then went on to project video "easter eggs" from my building's balconies and roof top – I positioned these projections to be unobtrusive, but something that people might get a little joy from, should they notice it from their balcony. I would often see a family member spot the projection and then bring out children to watch, then look about to try and see where it was coming from (they never spotted me). These long distance projections are tricker than they look because of the scaling and perspective issues when projecting from up to 50m away and at odd angles (which is hard to do without illuminating the entire building).
As things opened up, I continued my projections at street level but mapping the structures to be truly augmented.
Please excuse the video quality, they are not for industry purposes.
Building top, video "easter eggs".
