Outdoor Art Exhibition Activation With Augmented Reality (AR)

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Overview

Simone Eisler was an artist that exhibited in the 2021 Floating Land outdoor art exhibition in Noosa. Simone created a number of sculptures that explored, across human, animal and plant worlds, concepts of physical transformation, species evolution and adaption and the imminent threat imposed by climate change. Simone wanted to add an additional element to the visitor experience, by implementing some form of immersion via augmented reality (AR).

Noosa Boardwalk

The site of the exhibition was to take place somewhere along the Noosa Boardwalk (Queensland, Australia). This is a beautiful location, however posed some technical challenges. So we had to choose a location wisely. Working with Simone, we determine what were the most important elements to communicate to visitors.

Research

Simone already had defined objectives for the experience, as it would be attached to her physical work in the outdoor exhibition. We helped her refine her goals and how she wanted the overall experience to look and feel. We helped find a suitable location and then performed a site analysis and determined how people would flow through the site and how the experience would look and feel in the space. Being outdoors it was particularly important to understand user behaviour as there are less constraints and assistance available than in an indoor curated space with staff.

The Solution

The developed app allowed visitors to the artwork to access it on-site. Created a world around the visitors, showing the sea levels rise with an underwater environment exploding around them up around them. People could walk through an environment covered in seaweed and swimming fish, along with an underwater soundscape. It's here in this world that visitors could then see animated virtual models of the sculptures in an under water setting. Allowing for a better understanding of where they existed in the artists mind. Along with this was an underwater mermaid character that could be activated and described what had happened in environment around them. The mermaid also posed some poignant questions that visitors could think about while observing the artwork.

Conclusion

This experience was popular with site visitors and gave them something they weren't expecting. People, especially children, enjoyed walking through the underwater environment. Simone felt that she was able to convey deeper meaning in her artwork and got her thinking about how else she might incorporate augmented reality (AR) in future projects.