“The Twin Towers were giant,” says Brian August. “Having them gone is like walking into your bedroom when someone completely rearranged it.”
August has long been thinking about the loss that he and other longtime New Yorkers feel, whether they notice it or not, when they look at the post-9/11 skyline. In front of an auditorium filled with tech enthusiasts at the New York Tech Meetup on Tuesday, he tested — for the first time — the first portion of a project that aims to tactfully express that sense of loss.
The iPhone app that successfully launched during the demonstration is part of a project called 110 Stories. Using augmented reality, the app allows anyone with an iPhone in New York to put an outline of the Twin Towers in their proper place.
Photographs that people snap of the Towers’ virtual outlines and their attached comments will be posted on a map that anyone can scroll through. August hopes the app will help bring New Yorkers back to their lives before the terrorist attack.
“It’s like when you hear a song that you haven’t heard in a long time,” he says, “and you suddenly close your eyes and you go, ‘I’m 14 years old, I’m on a swing set and my dad’s barbequing by the pool.’”
August describes himself as neither an artist nor a developer. His day job title is VP of business development at collaboration platform Watchittoo. To fund 110 Stories and hire Chicago developer firm [zero] innovates, he posted the project on crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. In nine days, his campaign for $25,000 will expire. He’s already raised more than $22,000.
“I remember the first time I drove on the BQE past Lower Manhattan and I didn’t see them,” wrote one donor on the Kickstarter page. “Without even thinking I blurted out, ‘My God, there’s a hole in the sky.’ Now, at least in our mind’s eye, the hole can be filled again.”
The app, which will launch in the app store in about a month, will be free, and August will not make any money (“That would just be wrong,” he says).
Eventually, he would like to continue the project by commissioning 110 physical art projects that somehow place the Twin Towers’ silhouettes in the skyline from different vantage points around the city.
“People often ask me, what about the victims and the families and the memorial fund?” he says. “And I think that all of that is very important, and much so more than what I’m doing. But what I’m doing is a little different. For me, it’s really about people who lived in New York and were here before 9/11 who can say this reminds them of life before 9/11.”
More About: 110 stories, 911, Augmented Reality, ground zero, Mobile 2.0, virtual realityFor more Mobile coverage:Follow Mashable Mobile on TwitterBecome a Fan on FacebookSubscribe to the Mobile channelDownload our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad
Posted on Thu, 04 Aug 2011 13:11:09 +0000 at http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/a4CoddNkwwE/
Comments: http://mashable.com/2011/08/04/twin-towers-augmented-reality/#comments
August has long been thinking about the loss that he and other longtime New Yorkers feel, whether they notice it or not, when they look at the post-9/11 skyline. In front of an auditorium filled with tech enthusiasts at the New York Tech Meetup on Tuesday, he tested — for the first time — the first portion of a project that aims to tactfully express that sense of loss.
The iPhone app that successfully launched during the demonstration is part of a project called 110 Stories. Using augmented reality, the app allows anyone with an iPhone in New York to put an outline of the Twin Towers in their proper place.
Photographs that people snap of the Towers’ virtual outlines and their attached comments will be posted on a map that anyone can scroll through. August hopes the app will help bring New Yorkers back to their lives before the terrorist attack.
“It’s like when you hear a song that you haven’t heard in a long time,” he says, “and you suddenly close your eyes and you go, ‘I’m 14 years old, I’m on a swing set and my dad’s barbequing by the pool.’”
August describes himself as neither an artist nor a developer. His day job title is VP of business development at collaboration platform Watchittoo. To fund 110 Stories and hire Chicago developer firm [zero] innovates, he posted the project on crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. In nine days, his campaign for $25,000 will expire. He’s already raised more than $22,000.
“I remember the first time I drove on the BQE past Lower Manhattan and I didn’t see them,” wrote one donor on the Kickstarter page. “Without even thinking I blurted out, ‘My God, there’s a hole in the sky.’ Now, at least in our mind’s eye, the hole can be filled again.”
The app, which will launch in the app store in about a month, will be free, and August will not make any money (“That would just be wrong,” he says).
Eventually, he would like to continue the project by commissioning 110 physical art projects that somehow place the Twin Towers’ silhouettes in the skyline from different vantage points around the city.
“People often ask me, what about the victims and the families and the memorial fund?” he says. “And I think that all of that is very important, and much so more than what I’m doing. But what I’m doing is a little different. For me, it’s really about people who lived in New York and were here before 9/11 who can say this reminds them of life before 9/11.”
More About: 110 stories, 911, Augmented Reality, ground zero, Mobile 2.0, virtual realityFor more Mobile coverage:Follow Mashable Mobile on TwitterBecome a Fan on FacebookSubscribe to the Mobile channelDownload our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad
Posted on Thu, 04 Aug 2011 13:11:09 +0000 at http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/a4CoddNkwwE/
Comments: http://mashable.com/2011/08/04/twin-towers-augmented-reality/#comments