Reality, Augmented through Art

Contemporary artists would, should they bother to think of it, likely express some disagreement with Marshall McLuhan’s idea about the medium being the message. Artists, particularly those in the febrile early years of their career when they are defining and refining their theoretical and aesthetic vocabulary, are magpie experimentalists, often willing to try whatever will create the right resolve for their concept. It’s also the way of some more established artists - Marina Abramović’s experiments with mixed reality in her 2019 piece The Life come to mind and are of a piece with her audience-oriented practice - but for me some of the most interesting uses of technologies like this are when the tech element fades into the background, foregrounding the concept they serve. 

Recently, as a judge of the MullenLowe NOVA Awards, a programme that recognises fresh creative talent from Central Saint Martins across art, design, fashion and performance, I was interested to see a number of students deploy augmented reality (AR) in their submissions. AR isn’t new - or not new new at least - but in a time when even banks are deploying the technology for WFH traders, looking at the assistance that technology gives creative thinkers and makers to express new concepts shines an interesting light on the direction of travel. 

The spread of AR was, like VR, hindered by the low adoption of the specialist software and hardware required to use it. Starting with the iPhone 7 launch in 2017, mobile device technology democratised access to AR and the technology moved from the preserve of a tech elite to the wider population, with the cost of creating it falling rapidly. The cohort of Central Saint Martins students whose work was judged this year have encountered AR from artists like Olafur Eliasson and KAWS (both on the excellent Acute Art platform) brands of every flavour, museum displays - like the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ beautiful mural attached to its Japan Supernatural show of late 2019 and even restaurants like sketch with its David Shrigley immersive experience, and all during the years they transitioned from school kids into college applicants. For them then, AR is not a cutting edge medium with a message, it is another tool, a conduit for the creative resolution their artistic practice seeks.

The work of BA Fashion Design, Womenswear student Mathilde Rougier, a Runner Up at the 2020 MullenLowe NOVA Awards earlier this month, is an example of the way that emerging creatives in all disciplines create ways of working with technology that weave it seamlessly into a conceptual execution. Her project, Modular Augmented Capsule “addresses damaged data and its restoration as a form of creation. The collection’s aesthetic is based on a personal archive of garments. The archive was then recorded and manipulated digitally through photography, pixelation, 3D scans.

“The aim of the collection was to use what’s already been produced in terms of materials and inspiration to come up with new ideas, in short creating new from old, eternally.” 

AR was deployed, amongst other visualisation techniques, to bring to life a concept that challenges the prevailing approach to circular manufacturing in a way that manages the essential task of fashion to create a desirable commodity. 

Mathilde’s collection, with its visual roots in fashion’s 1980s and 1990s technologically innovative Japanese avant garde and the more recent post-digital warrior stance of labels like Marine Serre and Eckhaus Latta is a thought-provoking response to concepts of ownership, inspiration, and obsolescence. For those of us who apply our creativity commercially, it’s well established that brand communications should rightly follow the behaviour of the people they want to speak to but as purist creative thinkers like Rougier show, the role of the medium is most effective when it is in harmony with the message it seeks to elevate. 

 

The collaboration between London-based initiative Acute Art and American graffiti artist and designer, KAWS, is a great example of how AR can enable a whole new way of discovering, experiencing, and collecting art. The innovative project, called Expanded Holiday, centred around a series of KAWS’s trademark ‘Companion’ figures as AR sculptures and drawings at public exhibitions in 12 cities around the world. The project demonstrates the enormous potential of AR and conveys a sense of mischievous humour through the juxtaposition of physical and virtual worlds with KAWS’s signature Mickey Mouse inspired clown character. 

 

The collaboration also included a commercial component that could pave the way for how AR art is marketed in the future. 25 nearly six-foot-tall AR sculptures were available to purchase for $10,000 via the Acute Art app, or for smaller budgets, an open edition of 1.5-foot-tall AR sculptures could be bought for a period of seven or 30 days. Collectors were able to place the sculptures wherever they wanted using the app, as well as share their collection through social media. 

 

This project offered a sophisticated and safe way for people to experience art during a global pandemic and explored the possibilities for selling virtual and augmented reality art."

 

 

The recent work I’m most excited about is coming out of Andy Serkis’ Imaginarium Studios where, in partnership with Magic Leap, they are fusing together theatre, motion capture and AR to explore the future of live entertainment. 

 

Imagine the RSC performing Hamlet in your living room. Maybe walk around the performers to get the best view, interact with the characters, change their costumes or even the actors themselves. 

 

In addition, as AR technology advances and is brought into theatres, we might get to see virtual, motion capture, non-human characters on stage in theatres alongside real performers, elevating live theatre to embrace the special effects currently found only in film.

 

 

For me, the best example of art and augmented reality (ARt) is the virtual door to Vincent Van Gogh's ‘Bedroom In Arles’ from ruslans3d on the ARLOOPA app.

 

We want all art to be accessible but to see a particular work typically requires visiting an art gallery that might not even be in your country. Using AR technology, this example goes beyond the limitations of a photograph or reproduction to allow you to literally step through the bedroom door into the work of art. 

 

It’s an immersive experience that allows new art lovers to explore the detail of painting while existing admirers of Van Gogh experience the familiar artwork in a whole new way. It provides a glimpse of how AR can enable us to see existing art in new ways but could also inspire artists working today to embrace this technology to evoke an entirely new emotional response.

 

 

I want to talk about Julian Oliver’s 'Insertion Series: Four Interrupted Car Parks'.

This is a slightly cheeky answer because it's certainly not new (it's from 2009), the artist is one who works primarily with new media and it never actually 'worked' at the time it was released. However this is one of my absolute favourite pieces and it absolutely could work with 2020's tools and technologies. 

The piece comprises four simple (virtual) geometric sculptures that are placed in underground Car Parks in Madrid. 

For me this piece shows the incredible potential of augmented reality for Artistic experiences.

The way the forms and shapes hang unnaturally in the air yet have such a strong sense of presence, of belonging to that location and that location specifically, blew me away.

It also highlights how augmented reality brings to digital art for the first time a sense of scarcity, of exclusivity far more tangibly and effectively (imo) than technologies like blockchain that purport to do the same thing.

These pieces exist only at these locations and transform that location yet belong to it despite being impossible to exist in the real world.

The juxtaposition, the tension between the real and the virtual was breathtaking to me at the time and I still think about this piece all the time in my own work.

 

Augmented Reality has allowed us to defy the physical boundaries of our world and let our imaginations run wild. Tools such as Instagram’s Spark AR platform and Snap’s Lens Studio have made AR accessible to the many. Combining visual and coding tools has made complex body and world tracking data available and accessible, unlocking creativity in ways we never ever deemed possible. We’re now all artists. 

  

Around the world there are thousands of creators who share their vision and perspective on life and the world around us through AR; scenes to get lost in, bright colourful effects that morph to music around you, nostalgic moments brought back to life, platforms for activists to inspire action. Whilst I couldn’t possibly list every artist who inspires me I’d suggest spending one evening scrolling through Instagram and Snapchat’s creator galleries. You won’t be disappointed. 

  

However I have to shout out Ommy Akhe (an ethical hacker) who is a very notable artist in the AR space. Ommy has an extraordinary ability to keep innovating and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, using these tools in new ways and inspiring many others to do the same.