The Talking Trees of Chalkwell Park
- Submitting institution
-
Norwich University of the Arts
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- NUA-JG-01
- Type
- M - Exhibition
- Venue(s)
- Southend, Essex
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of first exhibition
- -
- Year of first exhibition
- 2015
- URL
-
https://nua.repository.guildhe.ac.uk/id/eprint/17335
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
-
- Research group(s)
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B - Human Interfaces
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Jamie Gledhill was commissioned by Metal Culture Southend to develop a creative response to the world’s first digital art park, the NetPark, a public green space with open wi-fi, in Southend, Essex. The project was funded by the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts, ACE in partnership with NESTA and AHRC.
The principal fields of research were interaction design with a focus on technical research into Augmented Reality (AR) solutions to develop the AR app. Gledhill used the Metaio AR platform and spent significant time investigating tracking options through practical experimentation. Initially he tested image-based tracking to identify a portion of a given tree trunk. Gledhill then experimented with marker-based tracking using the NetPark graphic. Neither of these solutions were satisfactory.
Gledhill’s research led him to use an instant tracking technique where a user takes a picture of an object with their device and this then becomes a temporary tracking marker. This was achieved through customisations Gledhill created to the Metaio platform using PHP, JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS. His work was innovative in 2015 because it combined elements of an AR app with mobileoptimised web-based content, what is now referred to as a ‘web app’. This ‘marker-less’ tracking, resolved as mobile-friendly videos, had not been achieved before that point. It was popularised the
following year by ‘Pokeman Go’ which employed a much simpler form than that developed by Gledhill for this project.
Gledhill also conducted significant archival research into historical and contemporary events related to Chalkwell Park, including a call for participation, which became the ‘Park Stories’ that informed script writing for the series of tree characters central to the work.
The location specific digital artwork combined social history and a sense of place into an Augmented Reality (AR) experience, exhibited in Chalkwell Park, Southend from June to December 2015.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
