How an augmented reality app transformed London into an immersive art gallery
If you ever hopped on the Pokémon GO craze, you’ll have an inkling of how digital technology is increasingly capable of adding rich new slices to everyday life. The public exhibition ‘Unreal City’, which ran from 8 December 2020 to 5 January 2021 on the River Thames in London, similarly superimposed digital layers on to reality, but with an aim to transform the city into an immersive augmented reality (AR) art gallery. An initiative from the AR app Acute Art and Dazed Media, the exhibition featured 36 digital sculptures from artists around the globe, and was arranged as a riverside walking tour at a time when indoor museums had become mostly inaccessible due to COVID-19. Featuring images of some of the sculptures and words from artists including Olafur Eliasson, Tomás Saraceno, Cao Fei and KAWS, this trailer for the ‘Unreal City’ exhibition is an exciting glimpse into the potential for AR as it continues to transform cities in strange and surprising ways.
Director: Kate Villevoye
Website: Dazed

videoTechnology and the self
Inside a tattoo parlour where hateful images are covered for free
11 minutes

videoWork
Like a cheery Sisyphus, Fred dismantles an industrial chimney one brick at a time
12 minutes

videoHistory of science
Insect aesthetics – long viewed as pests, in the 16th century bugs became beautiful
8 minutes

videoNature and landscape
After independence, Mexico was in search of identity. These paintings offered a blueprint
15 minutes

videoArt
A young Rockefeller collects art on a fateful journey to New Guinea
7 minutes

videoEconomics
A tour of New York’s gaudiest neighbourhood with the Marxist geographer David Harvey
13 minutes

videoArt
Defying classification, fantastical artworks reframe the racism of Carl Linnaeus
8 minutes

videoFilm and visual culture
Space and time expand, contract and combust in this propulsive animation
5 minutes

videoSocial psychology
What happened when a crypto scam swept over a sleepy town in the Caucasus
18 minutes