Art: Exhibition uses reality software a la Pokémon GO.
With a smartphone or tablet, the art on the walls of white-box space Gallery 2622 changes, animates and plays sound. The exhibition “Nothing Is What It Seems” uses augmented reality software, like the technology used in the game Pokémon GO, to add digital components to the art.
To see the additional parts of the artwork, viewers open an application on a cell phone or tablet and align the art into the camera’s view. Once the application recognizes the established tag, the extra content — video, photography and sound — appears or plays. It simply takes a picture of the artwork to create the tag. The exhibition uses the augmented reality platform Aurasma and features work from four individual artists and one collective.
Bass Structures creates paintings by placing canvases over speakers, playing music and pouring paint. The artists play with different frequencies of sound to create the desired effects. When viewed through the app, the splatter paintings animate and music plays, showing how the art evolved into the finished product.
“Finally they can show how they make their art rather than explaining it,” exhibition organizer Dena Nord said. Nord said she didn’t want the augmented reality portion of each artwork to feel like a gimmick.
John Kowalczyk’s layered collages and paintings at Gallery 2622 address gun violence. The augmented reality portion of his work shows both Kowal- czyk’s process and additional information about gun violence. Anja Notanja’s spokenword poetry plays when her art is viewed through the app.
Other artists and organizations have used augmented reality before.
The Cleveland Museum of Art has an application called ArtLens that helps visitors better understand artwork with information from the museum’s curators. Another app, NOAD, has been designed to replace advertisements in New York City subway stations with artwork. Nord, too, has incorporated augmented reality components into her own artwork for years.
“There’s definitely some groups that are toying with this, but it’s just that no one has really hit it big yet, mainstream,” Nord said.
“Nothing Is What It Seems” is the first show for Spectacle Art Group, whose members continually challenge themselves to incorporate emerging technologies into art making.
“Nothing Is What It Seems” is on view through Feb. 26 at Gallery 2622, 2622 N. Wauwatosa Ave.