Apple announces new public AR art project in cities across the globe

A year-and-a-half in the making, and a collaboration with New York’s New Museum, Apple’s [AR]T Walk magics up new augmented reality public art projects from Nick Cave, Carsten Höller, John Giorno, Nathalie Djurberg, Hans Berg and Cao Fei. The new pieces will appear (to the properly equipped) in London, San Francisco, New York, Paris, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

Launching on 10 August and running until at least the end of the year, ten people at a time, armed with an iPhone, the [AR]T app and headphones, will be lead by an Apple team member in each city around six interactive displays or pieces, each lasting five to ten minutes. Viewers will also be able to take still and video imagery of the pieces.

None of the artists involved in the project had worked in AR before, bar a little dabbling here and there. But Apple and the New Museum hope the project will alert artists and the wider public to AR’s full creative potential. ‘Augmented reality is a medium ripe for dynamic and visual storytelling that can extend an artist’s practice beyond the studio or the gallery and into the urban fabric,’ says the New Museum’s Lisa Phillips.

Nick Cave has created another immersive AR piece, Amass, with will be viewable at Apple’s stores in 20 countries and launches on the same day. As does [AR]T Lab, free Today at Apple workshops created by Sarah Rothberg, a New York-based artist and professor at NYU already working with AR and VR. The sessions will guide attendees through the creation of AR art using simple Swift Playgrounds coding.

INFORMATION

Registration for the [AR]T Walk and [AR]T Lab sessions will be available at apple.com/today