NAMAland :::

Augmented reality mobile app 2010

NAMAland

NAMAland was an augmented reality smartphone app which makes visible properties in Dublin reportedly owned by NAMA, the National Asset Management Agency.

The National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) is a controversial body created by the Irish Government to acquire property development loans from Irish banks in return for government bonds, primarily with a view to improving the availability of credit in the Irish economy. To date it has spent €47 billion and was controversial and divisive from the beginning. NAMAland sought to visualise this one aspect of the Irish financial collapse by overlaying an augmented layer of data on NAMA properties over the physical space of Dublin. This serves to make concrete what has become an abstract account of billions in loans by associating it with real buildings and lands which can be interrogated in real space on any smartphone.

The project is built on an unofficial database of NAMA properties maintained by the NAMAWinelake blog. The database was geotagged and built into an augmented reality cross platform app which worked on IOS and Android. The app takes the phones's position, compares it to the database of NAMA properties and returns the position of nearby NAMA-ed properties. The databse contains about 120 NAMA properties and is updated as required which, as NAMA was exempt from Freedom of Information legislation and guarded its data carefully, was the most comprehensive source of information about NAMA properties.

NAMAland Walks
The project has also included a series of very successful guided walks through NAMAland such as the 'NAMArama' walk with Market Studios and 'In These Troubled Times' with Rua Red which address the issues at the heart of the financial collapse and NAMA. I have also spoken on the project and the role of augmented reality technology as an activist tool of political critique in a variety of forums.

Press
NAMAland has received a lot of attention in the media including a segment on RTE1 New at Nine, more information is available on the NAMAland News page. NAMAland has also popularised the term 'NAMAland' which has entered into general usage when discussing the Irish property bubble.

Visit NAMAland site for more information.

 

 

NAMAland

Welcome to NAMAland

NAMAland screenshots, click for gallery.



NAMAland

Gallery of Images of NAMAland walks

NAMArama Walking Tour from Stunned on Vimeo.

NAMArama walking tour of Dublin's NAMAland, led by Conor McGarrigle and guided by the NAMAland app with performances by Joan Healy & Neil Flemming. Saturday 12th February 2011.

Conor McGarrigle 2018   Link to my Twitter account