Augmented Flashmob in Amsterdam

Amsterdam residents got together at Dam Square yesterday for the first ever augmented reality flashmob. Darth Vader, The Beatles, Superman and various other awesome characters were in attendance.

Love the concept but its just so bizarre to see it in practice. There's no real interaction between the attendees as they're all engrossed with the interfaces of their mobiles.

This dude summed it up nicely ;)

Demented Augmented

"The latter half of the 20th century saw the built environment merged with media space, and architecture taking on new roles related to branding, image and consumerism. Augmented reality may recontextualise the functions of consumerism and architecture, and change in the way in which we operate within it.

A film produced for my final year Masters in Architecture, part of a larger project about the social and architectural consequences of new media and augmented reality."

- Keiichi Matsuda