Librovision

Concept: Horst Hörtner
Christian Naglhofer
Robert Praxmarer
Date: 2004

Mountains of books fill shelf after shelf of libraries, archives and the bookcases of private homes. Much has changed since the invention of the printing press but space requirements are still enormous. Experience the future of information dissemination at the Ars Electronica Center!

With “Librovision,” the Ars Electronica Futurelab is pursuing a new approach to dealing with digital data and information. The user can leaf through a virtual book, enlarge details or shift them about on the display surface by using simple hand motions and without physically touching the computer or the monitor screen. There are also certain gestures that launch videos and hyperlinks on the book’s interactive pages.

The linkage between the reader and the virtual book is produced by a video camera that registers the user’s movements, interprets them in real time and feeds that information on to the control unit. The results of R&D in the field of “computer vision” forms the basis for invisible human-computer interfaces that make possible intuitive information exchange with the medium.