In “currents” by Alina Nazmeeva and Alex Kosnett, augmented reality is used to superimpose a holographic salmon run in place of a construction site where a new high-rise will emerge in the coming months. (Credit: Yabsira Wolde)
For three weeks at the end of August 2022, Future Arts hosted their first outdoor showcase, AUGMENT Seattle, in the tech-centered South Lake Union neighborhood. The result was a stunning display of the scale and range that AR has to offer as an arts medium. With a total of nine immersive art engagements created by 17 local and international artists, AUGMENT “rewilded” concrete buildings with 3-dimensional imagery of Indigenous and non-native plants, schools of salmon gliding on wind currents, and abstract, glitched-out bodies strutting invisible runways.
“There really is a breadth of ways that [AR] could interact with the environment,” says Bruk, a new media artist who had almost a decade of experience at Amazon, and Future Arts’ only full-time staff member. “We want to keep people rooted in this world, and AR does that.”
REDEFINE writers Vee Hua (L) and Katharina Brinschwitz on a press ARTour of the AUGMENT exhibit, featuring “#GlitchGoddess” by Marjan Moghaddam in the foreground. (Credit: Anna Czoski)