City’s first interactive mural comes alive on smartphones

Artists have put the finishing touches on an interactive, augmented-reality community mural in Crescent Heights.

The mural, at the corner of 8th Avenue and Centre Street N., was created by Calgary-based artists Kathryn Pearce and Tanner Hamilton with the Buds of Buds Collective, and allows smartphone-savvy art lovers to interact with the piece through an app called Augle.

“You use the app, you point it at the mural ... and it triggers animation in the app,” said Kevin Jesuino with the Crescent Heights Community Association. “You see a rainbow and a kite and a ball, and it reimagines what a community could be like.”

Jesuino said there have been temporary augmented-reality installations in Calgary before, including 2017’s Northern Reflections Window Exhibition downtown, also by Buds of Buds.

But he said the mural is the first permanent augmented reality piece in the city, adding the interactive installation will serve as the “gateway for our community.”

A judges’ panel saw 13 artist submissions before selecting the collective for the project. The mural cost $10,000 to commission and Jesuino said the funds were collected through parking revenue.

Jesuino said the project “was completely organized by the community” and people viewing the mural are already thinking about “what this technology could mean” for the art world, marketing campaigns and social media engagement.

“I think that this collective of artists that are doing this sort of work are on the cutting edge of the trends ... you could see that this was inspiring,” he said.

The mural is on the south-facing wall of the Ducktoes Computer Services building at 902 Centre St. N., and can be seen when driving north just past the Centre Street bridge.