Michael Lewis proposed an idea for creating a physical chess board that can be linked to the online world. I had bounced a similar idea a while back when working on the augmented reality table for Hackday NYC. I imagined using fiduciary markers as modular playing pieces with a screen based system. This would allow an unlimited number of games you could play. For this project though we decided to take a more conservative approach that upheld the aesthetics and materiality of the timeless game of chess.

One of the exciting advents for the game of chess is that it’s expanded to an online environment where players from different countries and across many miles can now meet on the Web and play in tournaments or with family and friends. However one of the difficulties with online chess is that players still lose certain qualities that you get with the physical board. Our game brings these two worlds together by allowing players to see on a physical chess board what moves their online opponent player is making. In our discussions with chess venues near NYU players mentioned that this could have great value for teachers as well as be an innovative development for the game. Something that is unique about our board is that it doesn’t require expensive technology such as projection and tracking as do other augment reality chess boards.

This weekend I road out to the market to meet up with Ray Ray and get some veggies. Often times we’ll get food from a greenmarket and then have a McKibbin community dinner Sunday night. As I arrived, Ray Ray was just finishing up loading all the compost donations into the truck to be hauled off to a community garden. Over the summer, there was such an overabundance of compost that Ray Ray organized some of market farmers to take some of the compost back to use at their own farms.

After he’d finished loading, we made a round at the market. Ray Ray knows everyone by name at the market and if he doesn’t know them, he would by the end of the day. I see that as a sign of a true locavor. Someone that knows not only about where their food is coming from, but the people who are growing and distributing it. We visited his friend at DiPaola Turkeys. We had actually bought a turkey from this guy at the Union Square market for Thanksgiving. He was very adamant about the fact that their farm only had one type of livestock. I didn’t find out if this was for economic reasons or specific environmental or health reasons.

We got some apples for a pie from Red Jacket Orchards. The guy

I kept with this same concept for the postcard and choose two images that I felt most representative to the project. The backside contained further location information and used graphics to convey a sense of physical architecture.

The project was documented by creating a “memory map” that contained snippets from various quotes and photographs take over the course of the project. These snippets were put in a grid styled reminiscent of late 20th century road maps.

The opening and exhibition was a success, attended by the mayor and other community leaders. There are plans to work on future projects with REMAP in the near future.

Articles:
UCLA Today

What began as a simple end of the year party ended in a culmination of art, music, community, history, technology, and last but not least—tacos. UCLA’s TFT course in Interactive Multimedia teamed with REMAP to explore the history of Los Angeles through the integration of cutting edge Nokia N83 mobile devises and Cisco Systems WiFi grid. We used these devises to map Los Angeles in innovative ways using GPS and REMAP’s massive image database.

Monumento 872 was, at it’s core, a way of sharing these “maps” with the community. Though the collaborative conception of our class, this event was born. We could not have made it happen without the support of the REMAP team, especially Vids Samanta and Jeff Burke. Vids was the key programmer who developed the Python software for the Nokia Devices. They were loaded with a “GPS medal detector” application. When you came in proximity of a defined GPS location, your device would be fed a “hidden treasure” in the form of historical information and images about the location you were at.

The event was a huge success with a turnout of over 1000 people of various sub-cultures from across Los Angeles. It took place a Chiperaki and the adjacent historical park just north of Chinatown. The event include various music artists performing in the park, a mixed media art show, taco truck, and the interactive devices.