National Gallery Singapore : First Responders AR by NYP students

 

 

 

The First Responders is an AR exhibition that not only augment reality but also augment the permanent museum collection gallery 1,2,3 on the 2nd level of the National Gallery Singapore. 

Even though curators may rotate some from the warehouse to the permanent gallery , most artworks in the permanent collection is still on display there. Yawn.

AR augment and refreshes the permanent collection with new experiences and thus gives the reason for visitors like myself to revisit the collection again. 

And all it takes for gallery implementation is a QR code. Visitors especially the young tech savvy millennials can view the AR using the Instagram app in their phones. 

 

 

I belong to Generation X, where my parents sent me to art school as a child as an extra curricula activity.  I learned to appreciate the painting as it is and therefore a bit skeptical about placing another layer on top of the painting. AR on a painting in my opinion is like a graffiti or photobomb where the AR being in front of the artwork takes the attention away from the painting by making itself the AR the center of the viewer's attention.

But after viewing First Responders AR by NYP students , it changes my negative perception of AR on artworks to a positive one. 

Firstly, the AR gives viewers a choice, to see view the painting as it is or view it in AR. 

Secondly, I think to give an serious comment about the painting in front of the viewer requires a lot of art knowledge to able to talk in terms of aesthetic or to able to identify the painting style and place it in the period in Art history. However young AR creators can reinterpret the artwork with exploratory play without the baggage of the art critic mind and augment the fun onto the serious contemplative museum experience. 

This makes Art accessible to the young generation because these are the opinions and voices of young AR creators.  I enjoyed the AR as well. Gallery visit were at best an enlightening experience but for the first time I felt that it can be a fun and delightful too.

 

Spoiler Alert : Skip the following if you intend to visit. 

 

I work as a technical writer and probably bias towards liking instructional AR that has a step by step procedure. The additional cloth making process informs the viewer the context of the artwork.

 

Unlike the previous example, the AR delivery here demonstrate to the viewers botanical information in the form of animation of how the tree trunk sheds its bark to flower. 

 

This AR reinterpret the abstract artwork by having a subject jumping into it.   

 

The AR animation of kampong life extends and occupies the space outside the painting.

 

This is a fun AR, monkeys stealing fruits from the Still Life painting.