Introduction to Augmented Reality in Museums
The Riot Grrrls App is a custom augmented-reality application for smart devices, developed by the School of the Art Institute’s Virtual Installation class. This project showcases how technology may be used to create a poetic piece that reflects the passage of time and the humanistic strategy of art history. In this text, we are going to explore the potential of augmented reality in museums and the method behind developing the Riot Grrrls App.
What is Augmented Reality?
Image-based augmented-reality (AR) technology allows any image to operate like a QR code. When you point your smartphone’s camera at a picture, the app reads it as a graphical code and sends that code as much as the Cloud, which beams down a related animation stored there. You can see this layered animation over or resting near the connected image. This technology relies on energetic wireless and plentiful images, making a museum its natural habitat, particularly when it’s placed within the hands of a visible artist.
Exploring Augmented Reality in Museums
In 2016, the Virtual Installation class on the School of the Art Institute developed the Romantic App, which engaged with the Art Institute of Chicago’s late Nineteenth- and early Twentieth-century collection. The app was created in conversation with Gloria Groom, Chair of European Painting and Sculpture on the Art Institute of Chicago, and her curating staff. The goal was to intervene and produce to the fore the results of industrialization and developments in photography on artists. This project demonstrated the potential of AR apps to comment on the passage of art historical time.
The Riot Grrrls App Project
For the subsequent iteration of the category, the main target was on a tougher subject. The Riot Grrrls exhibition on the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) was chosen, which presented abstract paintings from the museum’s collection, organized by Chief Curator Michael Darling. The Riot Grrrls movement was a feminist and queer punk-rock movement throughout the Nineteen Nineties, known for its powerful zine culture. The connection between contemporary digital-media apps and the historical relationship of today’s web bloggers to nineties zines was inspiring.
Collaboration and Research
The class contacted the MCA’s Manilow Senior Curator Omar Kholeif, who connected them to Rosie May, Associate Director of Education: Public Programs and Interpretive Practices. The class proposed a Riot Grrrls App zine-cum-blog and catalogue, and a performative demo and tour of the Riot Grrrls show using the app. As a part of their research, the category read scholarly papers on museum apps and had access to your entire infrastructure of the museum.
Critical Approach to Augmented Reality
A critical approach is embedded within the structure of augmented reality apps. As a medium, AR lends itself to institutional critique as much because it does to historiological commentary. Through the layering lens of an augmented app, we are able to see the strategy of art history itself, which accounts for a big a part of its uncanny delightfulness. The first artists to work with augmented reality positioned themselves in relationship to institutional critique movement, which included artists like Andrea Fraser, Martha Rosler, and Renée Green.
Conclusion
The Riot Grrrls App project demonstrates the potential of augmented reality in museums to create a brand new and modern way of experiencing art. By layering digital information over physical images, we are able to gain a deeper understanding of the art and its historical context. The project also showcases the importance of collaboration and research in developing successful augmented reality apps. As we proceed to explore the probabilities of augmented reality in museums, we are able to expect to see recent and exciting ways of engaging with art and art history. The students’ works for the Riot Grrrls App might be unveiled over the subsequent two months, and it would be exciting to see how they evolve and contribute to the continuing conversation about augmented reality in museums.
