LACHARD ARTHUR BOOK

In the history of the architectural representations, there were two kinds of perspectives. The first one, the perspectiva naturalis, was based on the optical deformation in the construction of temples. The second one, the perspectiva artificialis,  was conceived as a pure geometrical perspectival representation, outside the real to express an ideal.

The augmented reality can only be a perspectival representation and combines these two kinds of perspectives: we catch pictures from an optical device ( here a webcam ) and we overlay it to a numeric ideal perspective.

In the Perspectiva Virtualis installation, the Alberti linear perspective is experimented through new technologies. The corridor - or couloir - presents itself as the perfect place for this experiment. It is on one hand a generic and linear architectural element , and on the other hand its function is to connect different spaces as far as the augmented reality does. The setup requires a computer, a fixed webcam calibrated to the real space, a large projection screen as a mirror and the 3D model of the virtual world.

In the installation, the virtual is revealed by successions of sections like a medical CATSCAN: each section is determined by the location of the user in the real space. This detection of the human body, its location and its scale, becomes the measure and the medium of an interaction with this virtual world.