The science behind Open Air Gallery AR
Alice Dali AR Experience
Not many people know that Salvador Dali (1904-1989) was commissioned by Random House in 1969 to illustrate a small, exclusive edition of Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (1865). He painted 12 images for the 12 chapters of the book.
Svetlana Rudenko composed on the art of Dali, and Mads Haahr narrated and his team from Haunted Planet developed an Augmented Reality experience that gives you the momentum of a dream and the fairy tale of childhood. The app is available for free download here, and you can watch a screen recording of the gameplay on youtube.
The app geolocates the art-music soundscapes across the park. Players can use the radar on the screen to discover the images and hear the music and narration. Afterwards, they can take a screenshot of the AR Dali painting. Families can particularly enjoy the experience and be inventive by sending their children to stand inside the AR image for a screenshot, creating lasting memories of being in Alice's fairy tale.
Synaesthesia Gallery AR: Journey Through The Senses
This Augmented Reality (AR) app features music by Liszt, Chopin, Schumann, Scriabin, and others, painted by artists-synaesthetes. Synaesthesia is a peculiar wiring of the brain where sound can be perceived as color, taste, smell, or other sensations experienced in additional sensory modalities. The gallery is the result of a seven-year creative collaboration between artists-synaesthetes and Dr. Svetlana Rudenko, a concert pianist, composer, and researcher. Learn more about her work.
The Android and iOS app is available in two modes. Choose "Random" to play and experience the gallery in your location (anywhere in the world, preferably a park). The "Trinity College Dublin" mode geolocates the music/art soundscapes across the university campus. The app features a scientific episode with neuroscientist Prof. Jamie Ward from the University of Sussex, as well as interviews with the artists themselves. The art featured includes works by Carol Steen, Geri Hahn, Ninghui Xiong, Timothy Layden, Maria Jose de Cordoba Serrano, and Svetlana Rudenko. There is also an episode on sound-to-taste synaesthesia by James Wannerton titled "Tastes of Kandinsky. Download the app.
Read our Synaesthesia Gallery AR conference paper here.
Psychogeography with Jack B. Yeats, Dublin
Psychogeography with Jack Yeats" is a project centered around the development of a new methodology for multisensory design (MSD) through the design, implementation, and evaluation of a locative art experience with augmented reality (AR).
The project explores how a new type of digital locative experiences can be used to widen access to, increase engagement with, and improve appreciation of cultural assets while promoting healthy walking habits. The core hypothesis is that the quality of locative augmented reality cultural experiences can be considerably improved, in various ways, by enhancing the associated design processes, specifically by adopting multi-sensory design (MSD) practices in combination with psychogeography.
Psychogeography is a term coined by Guy Debord in 1955 and used to describe how different places make us feel and behave. Psychogeography experienced a resurgence as a concept in the 1990s when artists such as Iain Sinclair and Patrick Keiller began creating works focused on the experience of exploring locations by walking, particularly in urban and suburban environments. Earlier examples include Tristam Hillier, some of whose paintings (e.g., "La Route des Alpes" from 1937) can be considered works that engage with the concept of psychogeography in a countryside and landscape context. While psychogeography has existed as an idea for 75 years, it has not yet been adopted for designing technology-based experiences, such as GPS-enabled smartphones and augmented reality.
Our AR app features the works of Irish symbolist artist Jack B. Yeats (1871-1957) combined with original music soundscapes running on the Haunted Planet platform. The audience will experience an augmented reality GPS-based walking tour through the streets of Dublin, augmented with art and music soundscapes. Jack Yeats lived in Dublin from 1929 until his death in 1957, and many of his paintings were inspired by Dublin people and locations, such as "The Liffey Swim" and "The Flower Girl." The National Gallery of Ireland provides six digital images. The text narrative is based on fragments of Jack Yeats' life, including letters, interviews, and historical research. To emphasize the Irish ethnicity of the soundscapes, traditional Irish songs are incorporated into the design. Piano: Svetlana Rudenko, Violin: Kenneth Rice, Narration: Mads Haahr. Download the app.
Read our Psychogeography conference paper here.
