Matt Roberts

Dream Garden

Description:
Dream Garden is a site-specific project to gather, graft and nurture a city’s dreams. Each time a city dweller texts a 7-word dream (a poetic form moving private experience into public space), that dream automatically joins others both in a “garden” (a designated physical location in the city) and online at inthedreamgarden.com. The project shows how how some community resources– like citizens’ dreams — can inhabit and expand a space without wounding it, colonizing it or wasting natural resources. As a political space, it’s urban renewal and greening without displacement. As a philosophical space it suggests that dreaming together may change a city and even a country. As a community garden it suggests that our dreams aren’t wasted—they are growable, transplantable, and in the poetic space of the project, both virtual and real.

How it works:
This project uses Layar, a free augmented reality application for mobile devices. Participants can download the Layar app and see their texted dream joined with others in site-specific locations. The international project is designed to adapt to any urban space.

This is a collaborative project with poet Terri Witek and software developer Michael Branton. For more information about the project visit inthedreamgarden.com

Dream Garden Austin Peay State University

A new garden planted at Austin Peay Department of Art and Design

Dream Garden Summer 17

New Dream Gardens planted this summer

Currents New Media 2017, Santa Fe, New Mexico

ISEA 2017, Manizales, Colombia

Disquiet International, Lisbon, Portugal

ELO 2017, Porto, Portugal

Dream Garden at ACA

Launch of a new Dream Garden at the Atlantic Center for the Arts and an artist talk

OMA Florida Prize Interview

An interview for the Orlando Museum of Art Florida Prize in Contemporary Art exhibition.

Dream Garden Interview

A segment from an interview about Dream Garden which is part of the 2016 Florida Prize in Contemporary Art at the Orlando Museum of Art.

Dream Garden at Art In Odd Places Orlando

A few images from a recent presentation of Dream Garden at AIOP Orlando. Dream Garden Orlando allows participants to text a 7 word dream, which is collected on the Dream Garden website and planted in a augmented reality “garden” at the Orange County Regional History Center.

Unknown Meetings at ISEA 2015 Vancouver Canada

Documentation of a recent installment of Unknown Meetings in Vancouver’s SkyTrain Metro line during ISEA 2015

Unknown Meetings at xCoAx 2015 Glasgow Scotland

Documentation of a recent installment of Unknown Meetings in the Glasgow Subway for xCoAx 2015

Unknown Meetings at Univeristy of Florida

A recent performance and site-specific installation of Unknown Meetings at the University of Florida.

Unknown Meetings

Unknown Meetings is a site-specific augmented reality project that takes as its premise the awkward and surreal encounters that daily occur on commutes. Designed by new media artist Matt Roberts and poet Terri Witek for local transportation systems riders activate via smart phone both an “unknown” object moving over the actual landscape and an accompanying brief poetic audio file which considers such encounters.

These are activated whenever the train approaches a station. Commuters use the free Augmented Reality app Layar on their smart phones to see a floating image—usually an out-of-place object –and hear a brief accompanying text. Stations are nexuses of anxiety when we commute—is this our stop? By floating objects and words that offer still more unexpected juxtapositions, Roberts and Witek try to shift the anxiety of arrival into a consideration of moving “connections.”

Miami Herald video of Fire Dreams at O, Miami 2014

Fire Dreams at O, Miami

For the Month of April 2014 Fire Dreams will be part of the O, Miami poetry festival. A collaboration with Poet Terri Witek, Fire Dreams is an augmented reality project for mobile devices. Participants can locate dreamers throughout the city of Miami, see our poem/image collaborations, and contribute a seven word dream of their own. Visit the Fire Dreams website to find out more…

FIRE DREAMS

Description:
This project takes as its premise that when we walk through cities, our bodies enter the dreams of other people who’ve walked there. New media artist Matt Roberts and poet Terri Witek map the city by floating various “dreamers” over interesting metropolitan spaces. City wanderers then follow this walkable dream map via an augmented reality phone app. Along the way, they are offered chances to see a dream, hear a dream, text a dream of their own, send a photo, and perform various other transmittable acts. These become part of the living dream map of the city.

How it works:
This project uses Layar a free augmented reality application for mobile devices. Participants can download the Layar app and follow the Fire Dreams map, which is designed as an international project adaptable to any urban space.

Project Website:
http://thefiredreams.com

DAF/404 Taipei Taiwan

In November 2010 I participated in the Digital Arts Festival Taipei 2010. I was invited there by the 404 Festival and I presented my work Every Step. For the opening weekend I met with participants and outfitted them with cameras to create animations, you can see all the animations created by participants here.

CITY CENTERED

Last Month I presented my project Every Step at City Centered – A Festival of Locative Media and Urban Community The festival was located in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco and featured some great artist. A great event in an incredible city, I miss it already!

EVERY STEP

Every Step allows a participant to create a short experimental animation while they walk. Each participant is given an armband with a mounted camera and pedometer. The pedometer is mounted inside the armband and is connected to the camera. The camera is mounted on the armband and points towards the sky. The pedometer acts as a trigger for the camera and an image of whatever is above the participant is taken every time a step is made.
To create an animation the participant simply puts on the armband and takes a walk wherever he or she would like to go. When the participant returns from the walk the images are transferred from the camera’s memory and loaded into a custom software program. The software program uses the images to create a frame-by-frame animation and to create a soundtrack for the animation. When the program completes the animation, a DVD is made and given to the participant.

Every Step reviewed by We Make Money not Art “The techy work that really charmed me by its simplicity, poetry and melodies was Every Step.”

CYCLES FOR WANDERING

Cycles for wandering is a project that mixes a pleasurable bike ride, real-time image manipulation, locative media and user participation to create a short experimental video. To create a video a participant simply takes a five to ten minute bike ride. The bike is equipped with a GPS and video camera that records images and movements of the rider’s trip. A computer, mounted on the bike, uses the information gathered from the GPS to make decisions on how to manipulate the images taken by the camera. When the rider returns from the trip a DVD of the video made is created for them.

Recipient of Transitio Award, Transitio_MX 2007, Mexico City, Mexico
Cycles for Wandering Featured in Wired
Cycles for Wandering Featured in New York Times and Wall Street Journal

TRANSFERS

Transfers is a project exploring real-time generation of art and user participation in a mobile environment. Transfers allows a passenger of a taxi to generate a unique piece of art by giving the taxi driver directions. As the taxi moves through the city the passenger will experience a real-time manipulation of live exterior video and audio taken from a camera and microphone mounted in the taxi. The taxi is also equipped with a GPS that feeds an onboard computer data such as speed and direction. This computer is running custom audio/video manipulation software and uses the GPS data to make decisions about how the live video/audio feed is manipulated and seen by the passenger. The manipulations of the live feed is displayed on two LCD screens and heard through the cars stereo system. As the user tells the driver where to go the passenger becomes both performer and viewer as they experience a unique piece of art generated by their decisions. The software also records this performance and at the end of the drive the passenger receives a CD with a QuickTime movie file of his or her recorded performance.

Supertudo, TVE Brasil, Rio de Janeiro 2007