Cashback

The EPFL+ECAL Lab and ECAL are presenting a new mixed reality setup: "Cashback", as a preview at the Milan furniture fair (22.04-27.04.2009).
Your banknotes will come to life, taking a new shade, spelling desire and temptation. Banknotes will take on a whole new meaning for you; you just won't look at them the same way as before!

"Cashback" will work with 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 Euro banknotes, gradually making the animations more and more suggestive. A pure and simple setup combined with the everydayness of banknotes offers an ideal field of investigation, showing at last the true strength of augmented reality.

Just lay your own banknote on the box and the screen will reveal hidden meanings. The banknotes images get perverted as the graphical elements are brought to life, turning the banknote architecture into a virtual theater. The real meaning of what is a banknote comes forth, putting into perspective its official representation, its physical self, and the acts it drives you to do.

Presented in parallel with "Le monde des montagnes" (Pierre Bergé Award 2008), this new setup is based on the same intent to look for hidden significance beyond everyday images and objects. Can augmented reality give these objects a new status? "Cashback" and "Le monde des montagnes" both use a mixed reality technology developed at the Computer Vision Laboratory of EPFL (Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne). It overcomes the use of tags, allowing the designers to work directly on the objects and their images, thus preserving their identity and their secret meanings for the setup.

The poetic approach of the book "Le monde des montagnes" and the provocative touch of "Cashback" both give a good idea of the power of augmented reality.

Authors: Vincent Jacquier, Camille Scherrer, Angelo Benedetto, Alain Bellet
Design setup: Nicolas Lemoigne
Software: CVLAB - EPFL – Julien Pilet
Production: EPFL+ECAL Lab – Nicolas Henchoz