Sydney, April 9th ~ Melbourne, May 14th ~ Cairns, August 17th
In April and May this year, (Un)seen Sculptures, a mobile 3D augmented reality art show will be staged in locations in Surry Hills, Sydney (as part of the Surry Hills Festival) and around the Melbourne CBD.
In August, a selection of works from the Sydney and Melbourne shows will making a trip north to grace that city’s Esplanade and be part of the Cairns Festival.
In addition to this, one of the artworks will be “migrating” from Sydney to Melbourne and will be making appearances in regional centres throughout Southern NSW and Victoria. Click on the Bufo’s Progress link at the top of this site for more details.
Situated in these locations will be virtual digital works; hidden from the naked eye but visible to anyone with an iPhone, Android or Nokia smartphone and an app called the Layar Reality Browser, that can be downloaded for free from iTunes, the Android Market or the Ovi Store.
Once they have downloaded this app, people can simply open it up, search for “unseen sculptures”, select the layer set up for the show, then hold up their phones at the designated locations, and they will see 3D artworks. When these artworks are “touched”, further information about them will be revealed and other forms of interaction may be unlocked.
The show will feature works by Australian artists and international visitors from as far afield as the USA, UK, China, Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands and Japan. The pieces themselves will traverse a wide range of styles and subjects: anything from characters from a traditional Chinese version of Romeo and Juliet lost in the metropolis; to an infestation of psychotropic toads; to a singing virtual tree; to an 18th-century GPS device.
For specific details on the shows in each city, click on the Sydney, Melbourne or Cairns links at the top of this site.
If you’re intrigued by mobile augmented reality art in general, and want to find out what’s been done in this field elsewhere in the world, follow some of the links in the AR Art Links box in the sidebar on this site.
If you want to create your own mobile augmented reality art, click on the DIY link at the top of this site for some tips to get you started and some ideas about other directions to take your work.