stAR & ARts
Augumented Reality, Public Exhibit, Participatory Design
Team: Adam Huth, Xingtai Huang, Jiaxuan Ren
Personal Contribution: Unity, Visual Design, Event Outreach
Date: October - November ‘21
MISSION:
How might we use AR to provide a platform for people to gather and share their artworks with their community?
SITE RESEARCH:
Our team began the project sharing our preferences of themes and places. Topics that we all thought about included the boundary between public and private, social inclusivity, or artistic expression to help our community. With a rough destination of exploration, we went on a road trip to several locations within Berkeley to get a feel of the atmosphere of potential sites.
After looking through multiple landmarks in Berkeley, we stopped by the Berkeley Art Center and discovered a community event taking place.
Different people gathered together to connect and talk with each others. Participants wrote their own stories and feelings during pandamic on a strip of cloth. Then, participants handed their cloth to a person taking charge of fire and burning the cloth into dust.
We were very inspired by the interaction between the community members we saw, and how that experience was enhanced by the natural elements. The user research also provided us with expert insights into the history of the Berkeley Art Center and how important it is to involve the public - and not just a small portion - to come together.
BRAINSTORM:
We wanted our project to reflect upon the:
- Accessibility of park and art
- Amplification of artworks from POC
- Deconstructing and reconstructing historical narratives
- Participating in the co-creation of art from the public
- Claiming of space
After brainstorming, we then individually sketched out ideas or concepts we found interesting. Ideas included interactive creatures, musical instruments, and diaries.
Our final concept was to create a planetary system of art, centered on the site’s fire pit. Each planet would be representative of a theme, in which art would be categorized and available for users’ viewing.
In order to better categorize the art work submitted for the exhibition, we asked artists to respond to a selected theme (e.g. Conflict, Peace, Relationship, etc.) The themes were inspired by the The Planets, Op. 32 by Gustav Holst, where each movement corresponds to one planet. They are as follows:
Conflict - Mars
Peace - Venus
Relationship - Mercury
Growth - Jupiter
Passage of Time - Saturn
Magic - Uranus
Uncertainty - Neptune
AUGUMENTED REALITY + UNITY:
To start the interaction, we decided to use an image marker that would then “ignite” with fire in augmented space, before sending a sun hovering above the fire pit. The sun would act as the center and be a primary point in the user interface, acting as a toggle between a floating solar system and the virtual arts.
EVENT OUTREACH:
After our team decided that we wanted to build a public art exhibition launched with an event, we then had to begin community made art works. The whole process divides into three phases: collect, categorize and immerse.
We chose to use Airtable for its form and database capabilities - as we collect more artworks, we can eventually connect the database to our Unity project. We asked participating artists to submit artwork relevant to one of our selected themes. Along with allowing them to submit artwork in a variety of formats (photograph, video, 3D models, audio, etc.), we gave them an opportunity to provide their bio and information about the piece. From there, we collected additional background info, such as which neighborhoods the artists resided around Berkeley.
We designed posters that we printed and distributed across various neighborhoods of Berkeley and Oakland to raise awareness for the event. We also shared our events via various digital outlets like Nextdoor and Facebook Groups.
EVENT:
On Saturday, November 6th, 2021 between 2-5pm, we held a public event at our site where we shared our augmented reality exhibition with the public, make art works as a community, and enjoy refreshments and a bonfire together. We hope this event marks a beginning to our exhibition, not an end.
After the event, we hope to continue collecting art works from the community, as well as publish the Unity app in order to make the augmented reality exhibition accessible to the public for a longer period of time.
