The City Never Sleeps - Augmented Graffiti

Graffiti artist Marc C. Woehr and Interaction Designer Achim Kern have collaborated on this project to augment graffiti using light. The installation with the title 'The City Never Sleeps' features a Woehr drawing and uses projection to light paint into it.

It is quite amazing how the light has the power to completely change the scene. It is possible to turn the whole thing inside out by lighting up the facades of the buildings and taking them out of the darkness or especially when the sky behind the buildings becomes the focus of the activity.


Image taken from Achim Kern / Impression form the exhibition where 'The City Never Sleeps' was shown. The artist were not atisfied with the exhibition pace, not dark enough, so they prduced a second visual shich can be seen HERE.

Graffiti feature everywhere in the urban scene and are already quite a lively part of the street scape, since they apear and disappear on a short term basis. Adding the temporality of the lighting this could grow into a fully blown interactive urban landscape using augmented reality or tagging technologies. Maybe even in combination as demonstrated by the Tales of Things team at the last CASA Seminar. Martin de Voot demonstrated how to use QR tags as AR tags.



With technology becoming available, especially for examples mobile projectors this could be a fantastic feature for the urban context. Products are available for examples from Microvision.