Watershed Augmented Reality Mural (Art Documentation)
This video documents the Watershed Augmeted Reality Mural, an interactive art installation at the Symbiosis Gathering 2009. Artists Gabe Shaughnessy and Dan Cohen painted a mural representing the story of how San Francisco gets its water and augmented that painting with digital projections triggered via a custom midi controller by those viewing the painting. It also features a brand new track by Sidecar Tommy and MiMoSa! Editing and night footage shot by Christopher Darrow. Day time footage provided by M1.

Here is the full description from Gabe Shaughnessy and a still image of the custom controller they made for user interaction:

This is the documentation of an interactive art installation at Symbiosis Gathering 2009, held in Camp Mather, California, Adjacent to Yosemite National Park.

The installation was a mural that participants used a custom built midi controller. The mural uses augmented reality, a technique where digital information is projected onto a real world surface, in this case a painting. The painting is colored with projected light, and using photoshop, vdmx ad particle illusion software, the mural becomes interactive.

The city of San Francisco bought Camp Mather and made the OShaughnessy Dam to provide fresh drinking water and preserve the pristine quality of the water for the city. Today the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir provides the drinking water to 2.4 million people in the Bay Area, via a WPA era pipeline that runs across two fault lines remains a preeminent feat of engineering to this day.

The purpose of the mural was to help people understand the effect they have on the watershed, and to understand a bit about the delicate nature of their surroundings at Symbiosis Gathering.
The mural was painted collaboratively by Dan Cohen and Gabe Shaughnessy. Travis McCann was the Technician and this film was shot by M1 and Christopher Darrow and edited by Christopher. The sound track is a preliminary mix of a song titled 53-sidecar by Sidecar Tommy and MiMoSa. All materials are copyright 2009.