Throughout the summer, we’ve covered some of the highlights of Bruce Sterling’s Layar-sponsored AR design class at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

As all good things must come to an end, so has this class, but not without some impressive final student projects! Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be sharing videos of these projects as well as footage from last week’s class presentations with Layar strategist Gene Becker making a guest appearance to offer comments and feedback. You can read all of our posts about the AR Design class here.

This first video is for a concept called “enlitenar”, and it features students Ryan D’Orazi and Jennifer Rosetto (as well as a cameo from Bruce Sterling and his wife, author and filmmaker Jasmina Tešanović), who use Augmented Reality to cross over to the spiritual dimension.

In addition to this otherworldly concept video, the students created an enlitenar layer (currently still in testing) with Hoppala that uses audio and visual elements to facilitate a connection between physical reality and the invisible forces that influence everyday life.

If that sounds a bit heavy for you, we’ll leave it at this: if you’ve ever wanted to see Bruce Sterling perform an initiation ceremony dressed as a cyberpunk cult leader (goodness knows WE have), watch this video!

enlitenar: augmented spirituality reality from RYAN DORAZI on Vimeo.

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Layar’s favorite science fiction author and “Guardian Seer of Augmented Reality” Bruce Sterling has just crossed over into the Layar developer realm.

As “Visionary in Residence” at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, Bruce felt the best way to inspire his students to create immersive AR experiences was to create one himself because, as he said, “Sometimes it’s easiest to teach by doing.”

Obviously an Augmented Reality visionary like Bruce Sterling wasn’t going to make a layer to find ATMs or restaurants, but little did we know his finished project would augment an underground, offline media network perfectly aligned with the tenets of AR!

Last week Bruce revealed the Dead Drops layer to the world through his blog, which enabled a new wave of discovery for Berlin-based media artist Aram Bartholl‘s Dead Drops project.

Dead drops are USB flash drives embedded into walls, buildings and curbs that are accessible to everyone and located in public space. Anyone can add to and take from a dead drop, or create their own and add its location to the website. The result of this project is an anonymous, offline peer-to-peer file sharing network.

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The Layar-sponsored augmented reality design class being taught this summer in California is still truckin’ along, so we thought we’d take this opportunity to share another video from the class.

This time we have a presentation by Layar artist Sander Veenhof, who is known for using Layar in his augmented reality art projects like the Pentagon/White House Infiltr.AR and the Museum of Modern Art AR “Uninvited” Exhibit. In this presentation to the students at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, Sander explains his history as a digital artist using augmented reality, as well as his idea of “invisible augmented reality”.

He also talks about how he uses the term “Free-D” (instead of 3D) because technology has opened up a limitless world for expression. As for what exactly “invisible augmented reality” is, you’ll just have to watch his presentation to find out. So check out the video below to see Sander’s talk in front of the AR Design Class in Pasadena.

Resistance is futile; the best you can hope for is survival.

These menacing extraterrestrials are highly-intelligent and have made their presence invisible to the naked eye. In order to view the threat, you must engage the Battle: Los Angeles layer through your mobile phone.

Once you launch the layer, you’ll see alien commanders and battle drones, but there are also alien command centers attacking US capitols and landmarks. If you see one, take a screenshot and share it on Twitter or Facebook to warn others.

… Ok, so there isn’t really a threat in “physical reality,” but there is a very serious alien invasion happening on Layar as a fun and interactive way to promote the film Battle: Los Angeles‘s Blu-ray/DVD/iTunes release on June 14.

The Battle: Los Angeles layer was a creative collaboration between Sony Pictures and Layar Partner Zehnder Communications, and it’s a great example of how to integrate Augmented Reality into a multi-platform digital marketing campaign.

The layer includes several multimedia options in the actions menu, allowing users to launch movie trailers and sneak previews, enter a sweepstakes to win a PS3, and purchase/pre-order the movie on Amazon.

It also highlights some Layar 5.0 features, including social sharing of screenshots, high-quality 3D models and both locative and dynamically generated POIs (aliens and droids appear near you no matter where you are, but command centers are only visible at specific locations, like over the White House, for example).

Check out this ultra cool promo video highlighting the Layar integration:

For more ways to survive the alien invasion (and possibly win prizes in the process), visit the Battle: Los Angeles website, “like” its Facebook page or follow @BattleLA on Twitter.

If you’re in the Los Angeles area, we’ve got a special event coming up that we hope you’ll join us for!

On Friday May 20th, we will be hosting LAYAR DAY L.A. - a full day of hacking space and time with augmented reality. Join us as we seek inspiration from visionary thinkers and from street-level artists, and help us make some cool AR!

Meet the Layar team at 10:45am at the Geffen Contemporary for an informal visit to the Art in the Streets exhibition of street art. MOCA opens at 11am and admission is $10 at the door.

From 1:30-3:00pm, we move to the Arts Center College of Design where artist Sander Veenhof and Layar’s Gene Becker will lead a hands-on workshop for artists, designers and enthusiasts who want to learn to make augmented reality experiences on the Layar platform. We’ll use street art, public AR art exhibitions and historical layers as examples of hacking space and time.

Following the workshop, join us from 3:00-6:00pm for an afternoon with some of the most visionary and creative minds in augmented reality. We have an incredible lineup of speakers including noted author Bruce Sterling, Layar co-founder Maarten Lens-FitzGerald, Scott Fisher of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and Dutch artist Sander Veenhof.

The LAYAR DAY L.A. workshop and symposium is hosted by Art Center College of Design, and will be held in the Faculty Dining Room at ACCD’s Hillside Campus, 1700 Lida St., Pasadena, CA. The informal tour of Art in the Streets will meet at 10:45am at the Geffen Contemporary.

Space is limited so visit this page to reserve your place at either the workshop or symposium.