About the project

Building on the concept of Dérive - an unplanned journey through an urban landscape - and the desire to push the boundaries of AR technology at the time, the goal of the project was to create a novel way of experiencing a connection between reality and a virtual world. This connection is established via a handheld projector that uncovers a virtual world behind real lives' walls like a torch light in the dark. That way, ordinary city walls are transformed into multidimensional screens that allow for a deep level of immersion. In the beginning, the parallel world appears dark and empty, but it blooms and flourishes as soon as players interact with it.

floating about is designed so that it could be a part of city-wide media art events or festivals like the Luminale, that visitors attend with a mindset of exploration and discovery.

The game is meant to be played when strolling through the city at night, ideally in a group of friends that can share the experience. Since the game world is generated using location-based data, players are encouraged to find out how it changes in various places around the city.

To bring the virtual world back to life, players have to solve a different puzzle at each location, guiding small light beings through a generated level. They can activate various super powers by sending tweets with emoticons, to overcome varying obstacles at each location.

A prototype of the game device was built using a mini laser projector connected to a smartphone. The device also features an array of IR LEDs, that enable positional tracking using two Wii Remotes and a separate, networked computer. The virtual world is rendered in realtime on the smartphone using Unity.