Augmenting the world?

Great artworks make you see the world more richly. This cannot be realized simply by introducing more information into an artwork. Great artworks make visible things that we did not recognize when we saw them directly with our own eyes. Sensitivity is the key to understanding the world differently, and the preparation of sensitivity requires artificial objects – ie artworks. Artworks supply a platform for experiencing our sensitivity as viewers.

AR (Augmented Reality) is a platform not only for adding more information, but also for presenting additional objects that we may compare with the real world as an artwork. 80 years ago photography was still the dominant new technological media for enhancing the world with its duplicate. However, the invention of photography also enable mass world-wide distribution of images, which would ironically, eventually make the world seem blurry. Art has an important role to play in resolving the blurriness through its critical potential.

I will discuss my recent project BeHere / 1942, an AR application based on archived photographs.