Why adopt a half grown human
when you can save a starving student?
Adopt-An-ArtStudent is an augmented reality experience that straddles the line between whimsy and harsh reality. It seeks to de-glamorize the idea of being an artist / being in an art school—an idea which many people to this day think of as a fun-filled / privileged / easy venture—and instead bring to light the struggles and obstacles of being an art student.
Each adoptable student is unique—with a hint of their personality reflected on the suitcase they carry. The user starts the adoption process by scanning a suitcase with their phone. Once the adoption is finalized, they can keep the student in their pocket and interact with them at any time—give them food, beer, grants, and most importantly, the ever-elusive gift of sleep.
28 MAY 2018 UPDATE
Once again, I have been tasked with experimenting in the augmented reality* realm and this time, I’ve decided to break up the serious tones that engulf most of my current projects and work on something more whimsical.
The biggest obstacle for this project so far is the development platform—the only service we were given free developing access to is Blippar, which is riddled with bugs and frustratingly inexplicable internal errors. As inhibiting as it is for most people, it’s even more so for me, as the AR-building platform that I’m used to is Vuforia—a much more customizable and intuitive service.
This led me to scrap a number of AR project ideas that I initially wanted to work on (although I will likely still try to develop these in the future), and steered me towards this simpler and sillier application… which turned out to be a blessing in disguise since I needed a bit of refreshing humor with everything else that I’m working on this year.
This augmented reality app is called Adopt-An-ArtStudent and funnily enough, it will be the first finished project I will have produced this year—to be previewed this summer (2018), and officially premiered in September!
*The last time I dabbled in AR, it actually resulted in a pretty cool and useful product. Check it out on my website: Elements 4D (in collaboration with DAQRI).
PROJECT CONCEPT
Adopt-An-ArtStudent is an augmented reality experience that straddles the line between whimsy and harsh reality. It seeks to deglamorize the idea of being an artist / being in an art school—an idea which many people to this day think of as a fun-filled / priivileged / easy venture.
Despite the staged sequences to fill the context of the application, the art students depicted in this project are 100% real—as are their wants, needs and desires [albeit much simplified for illustrative and representational purposes].
BLIPP INSTRUCTIONS FOR ANY & ALL AUDIENCES
Visitors can access the Adopt-An-ArtStudent blipps using their own smartphones, should they choose to download the Blippar app—if they don’t have it already.
Otherwise, the exhibition staff can lend them the smart device on hand (preloaded with the exhibition’s Blippar test code, if needed). Either way, a set of simple instructions will be displayed within the setup.