VMF - AR Kaleidoscope

This AR Kaleidoscope was commissioned by the VMF for their 2022 Winter Arts Festival. Downtown Vancouver was transformed into an open-air gallery. Large-scale AR murals, light installations, interactive inflatables, live music, and performances, including Cirque De Soleil, brightened the city for the month of February.

The digital and physical worlds are merging, forming a new mixed reality where anything is possible. People’s surroundings and personal expression will be completely customizable, instantly adapting to different styles, situations, and audiences. This fluidity and potentiality will likely change the very nature of identity. But, what is a “real” identity? Is it what we people are born with, what they reflect from the world around them, or what they choose?  Will the ability to change the presentation of the surrounding world become yet another layer of identity?

The Kaleidoscope reflects all of these possibilities in a full-body, AR sculpture.  Like a standard kaleidoscope, it echoes the surrounding world but also turns the mirror toward the audience and hands them the controls. Part 1 of the Kal-I-doscope is focused inward (on the participant’s face), while part 2 is outward-focused, projecting pieces of the audience onto the world around them.

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