Here, There, Everywhere

Where does contemporary art live if we have access to everything from the little screens in our pockets? 

In collaboration with Dan Moore and Addie Wagenknecht.

Finalist for permanent installation at House for Electronic Art, (HeK), Basel, Switzerland.

Here, There, Everywhere is a simple, analog matrix of interchangeable tiles which will act as fiducial markers (reference grid) for online Augmented Reality (known as “AR”) artwork. Augmented Reality places digital media (3D models, videos, animations, still images) into a live, real-time view from a mobile device’s camera. The technology uses precise optical alignments to “fix” a digital artifact to a physical object. It combines digital effects and physical reality through your phone or tablet. The grid at HeK will be a modifiable and adjustable set of markers as the anchor for equally variable digital works.

At HeK’s discretion, an artist or group of artists will propose a visual arrangement for the tiles to be seen on Freilager-Platz. This unique physical arrangement will correspond to a purely digital work to be experienced through a purpose-built Augmented Reality app. Passersby will see a pixelated message or graphic. Those who engage the work digitally will see surprising, cutting edge, amusing or poignant digital messages hidden in plain sight. Here, There, Everywhere represents contemporary digital culture’s paradoxical relationship to concepts of place. The installation is “here”: here at HeK, here in Basel, here in front of me. It is also seen and experienced across Freilager-Platz; it is “over there.” But it’s also in your phone, that magical portal to the digital ether, to the “everywhere.”