[work in progress]
This new development of the Placoter : une écriture montréalaise Project uses Lidar technology to digitise architectural elements by taking into account their volumes: for example, a letter E shape on a building can be seen from a multitude of points of view; one can turn around it, change its perspective and thus its shape.
It can also be shared and broadcast in augmented reality, thus sharing its spectrum in the room where you are, on a table or in the palm of your hand.
The letter-collecting approach at the heart of the Placoter project encourages intense observation of the environment one walks through, then recording it, and thus archiving it.
The experiments conducted so far for the project have led us to explore the vernacular architectural details of the Rosemont Petite-Patrie neighbourhood, and the individual practical or aesthetic arrangements put in place by those who live there.
This augmented reality letterform, moulded into the volumes of the neighbourhood, will serve to write it down, but also to archive its details in the face of the risk of gentrification.
This project will be pursued while working with senior communities of Rosemont and Verdun. This will show us the territory through the eyes of those who inhabit it and see it changing, and to include the participants in an archive and memory project involving emerging technologies.
These preliminary scans were captured with my then research assistants Carolina Bea and Laurence Thibault, during a 26 km walk through Montreal in Summer 2022.