DIGITAL PLAYGROUNDS AR WORKSHOP | 2018

Blank Space is a creative space in the heart of Oslo that has a gallery, holds workshops, classes, film viewings etc. Liz Ramsey, the director at Blank Space, and I have had discussed the idea of doing something fun that involved art and technology for a while. I got invited to hold a workshop on AR in order for artists and illustrators to create something site-based with augmented reality, at the Blank Space gallery. The idea for the show was to have an empty, white room, that could explode with colors and stories crafted by different artists; same space, different eyes to see through.

The workshop focused on facilitating an AR tool for the artists to paint/create their art with, being site-specific to the landscape of the gallery. The idea was at first to have some sculptures that would come to life with each artists’ vision. This concept scaled-down to have some white canvases instead (due to logistics issues with having sculptures at the space).  I designed the main idea for the app with a very simple interface. The final application used computer vision and AR-markers (the app was developed in early 2018) to display the art in AR on a vertical plane.

The workshop was held in April 2018 and it was a lot of fun to see so much creativity and skills displayed digitally on a physical space like Blank Space.

I also did a podcast too! Check it out here.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Tommy Svensson for being the app developer and for holding this workshop as well, and to Liz Ramsey for making this happen. Special thank you also to the amazing artists that participated, among them Rikke Fjeld Jansen, David Stenmarck, Martin Mauseth Hvattum, Inna Hansen, Tom Thrilly, Georg Aleksander Sletsjøe, Bjørnar Frøyse and Simon Nyhus.

KF Science Center
Digital Playgrounds AR exhibition