The Occupy Wall Street protests quickly spread from New York City to the rest of the United States to the rest of the world, and it’s only fitting they should now occupy Augmented Reality, where neither blockades nor pepper spray and baton-wielding police officers can keep you off of Wall Street. 

Layar developer and Manifest.AR founding member Mark Skwarek has made a global call to activists to make themselves seen and heard in AR, which according to the AR Occupy Wall Street blog, is much more difficult to do in “actual” reality.

“Protesters were not given permits to protest at Wall Street forcing them blocks from the New York Stock Exchange [NYSE]. Wall Street was barricaded off. Only part of the sidewalk was accessible to the public and there was a constant heavy police presence. 

arOCCUPYWALLSTREET takes the protest to the heart of the financial district, placing them directly in front of the NYSE. Augmented reality gives protesters the ability to have a truly global affect on world events.”

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We’re all a aflutter today over “Peeling Layers of Space Out of Thin Air,” an awesome new multi-layer project on the Layar platform from a group of talented architects at Architecture OMI in Ghent, NY. 

The project uses beautiful interactive 3D models and animation, as well as other Layar 5.0 features to create a truly immersive AR experience! If you can make it to Ghent, NY for the opening this Saturday, July 9, we’d love to see your screenshots and videos!

In the meantime, check out this impressive video of Kol/Mac‘s “What is Space?” layer.

 

OPENING SATURDAY JULY 9 2011 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM Architecture Omi presents Augmented Reality: Peeling Layers of Space Out of Thin Air AUGMENTED REALITY BY ARCHITECTS @ OMI http://www.cleater.com/peeling/ 

Architects: Acconci Studio, Asymptote, Cleater Studio, Kol/Mac, Metaxy, Leeser Architecture, Studio Daniel Libeskind, SHoP, and SITE 

Curator: John Cleater / Program Director: Peter Franck Adviser and Documentation: Mark Skwarek and Will Pappenheimer THE FIELDS SCULPTURE PARK at OMI 1405 County Route 22 Ghent, New York 12075 Bring your smart phone for an evening of architecture in the landscape. 

By pointing your iPhone or Android at the sky, you will see virtual pieces of architecture installed in the physical landscape at Omi. For more information email architecture@artomi.org, visit www.artomi.org or call 518-392-4740.

Update: This project was also featured in the Wall Street Journal on August 31. Check it out!

Image from the Gradually Melt the Sky exhibition invitation.

Last week we wrote about two Augmented Reality art shows opening this month in Philadelphia. Well, East Coasters, you can add two more to the list.

Some of Layar’s most innovative and active “ARtists” in the US, including Mark Skwarek, Will Pappenheimer and John Craig Freeman (along with other, internationally based, members of Manifest.AR like Sander Veenhof) kick off a new exhibition this Friday at Devotion Gallery in Brooklyn called Gradually Melt the Sky.

The exhibition runs from April 8 - May 1, and featured ARtwork includes a visualization of water contamination in the Williamsburg/Bushwick neighborhoods, a “Parade to Hope” and a re-creation of the 1989 Tiananman Protest.

The ARtists will then move these and other works to Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) from April 22 - May 8 for the Boston Cyberarts Festival. If you’re in the Boston area for the event, you can access the mobile site and ManifestAR layer here.

“Miro Alien Chest-Burster” by Jon Rafman at the VPAP@PIFA AR exhibition in Philadelphia.

While there doesn’t appear to be an “Augmented Reality Awareness Month” yet, April is looking like a strong candidate. Besides the lovely weather here in Amsterdam and in many parts of the world (ideal for mobile AR experiences), there are already two Augmented Reality art exhibitions (in 3 locations) using the Layar platform so far this month.

The first runs from April 7-May 1 in Philadelphia, PA as part of the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts (PIFA). This exhibition is a collaboration between Breadboard, a hybrid program at the University City Science Center dedicated to exploring the intersection of art, science and technology, and Layar Partner VPAP (Virtual Public Art Project).

VPAP@PIFA features 25 works of art placed strategically around around the city (like on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, for instance). These 3D AR models include, but are not limited to, a giant alien snake (see image, right), a deformed foot that changes color, and a giant squid.

Mark Skwarek‘s “Occupation Forces” at the (Un)seen Sculptures exhibit in Sydney/Melbourne Australia.

Meanwhile, another ARt exhibition called (Un)seen Sculptures kicks off on April 9 in Sydney, Australia as part of the Surry Hills Festival then reopens in Melbourne on April 30.

The exhibition was organized by Australian new media artist Warren Armstrong and features 3D models created by 13 artists from across the globe, including a robot army (see image, left) a memorial for Japan, and a colony of hallucinogenic toads that copulate and then die.

You won’t be able to see the models yourself unless you’re physically present at the exhibition locations, but if you do go to one of these events, send us your screenshots! (content@layar.com)

Congratulations to all the artists, veteran Layar developers and new, for their phenomenal work. These are some of the best 3D models we’ve seen on Layar yet!

An artists’ rendering of the Twitter balloon inside the Oval Office.

Layar is nothing without its creative and highly-skilled developer community, so we thought it would be cool to include some blog posts from the mouth of one of the most renowned Layar developers/dreamers/artists we know.

Sander Veenhof (SNDRV) is the man behind some of the coolest and most talked about layers including Biggar, The Game of Life, and the MoMA AR Exhibition. We asked Sander to write about his latest collaboration with Mark Skwarek, a guerilla AR campaign that launched Friday, February 25 (Stay tuned for video coverage from this event as well).

Tweeting to Obama but not getting through? Since February 25th you can now reach him right at his desk in the Oval Office. A virtual Twitter balloon has been placed inside the White House and another one infiltrated the Pentagon using the GPS-based Augmented Reality browser, Layar. The balloons display the latest tweets containing the hashtags #OvalOfficeChat or #PentagonChat respectively.

The placement of the two Augmented Reality balloons was the mission of infiltr.AR, a live augmented reality infiltration event orchestrated from a temporary command centre at Club Karlsson in Amsterdam. It’s the latest experiment in crossing physical borders by members of the Manifest.AR artist group, best known for their previous infiltration project: an unofficial guerrilla exhibition inside the MoMA NYC last year in October.

An artists’ rendering of the Twitter balloon inside the Pentagon press room.

The virtual Twitter balloons inside the White House and the Pentagon can be seen ‘for real’ using Layar. Search and open the layer “INFILTRAR.” When not inside the two buildings, an ‘artist impression’ of the augmented space will appear, including an actual live copy of the Twitter balloon.

Since Manifest.AR members do not have press passes, and most probably never ever will, we are highly curious to see any screenshots of the virtual public message board inside the Pentagon press room, so journalists, give it your best shot! (And Tweet it hashtagged #pentagonchat please).

-Sander Veenhof and Mark Skwarek of Manifest.AR