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“Dream Garden” is a phone project that invites people to decorate an urban space by submitting 7-word poems, which the project refers to as dreams. Participants can then use Layar, a free augmented reality app, to see a floating garden of dreams in the space around them.

Above: Video describing project

I think this project is super cool because it combines poetry and computer science, a combination that is relatively rare but definitely interesting. I admire both the interdisciplinary nature of the project and the inclusivity of it. Anyone can submit a dream and have it displayed, so the garden really represents the people who live near the urban space.

The artists behind this project are Matt Roberts, Terri Witek, and Michael Branton. Roberts is a new media artist, Witek is an author and creative writing teacher, and Branton helped design and found the Computer Science major at Stetson and still works there as a Computer science teacher. Their bios and a description of the project can be found at http://inthedreamgarden.com/.

I hope that this project can inspire others to use augmented reality in creative ways, as well as consider the place of poetry and other writing in technology.