ECT Brownbag: Prof. Mads Haahr, Dr. Svetlana Redenko, Geri Hahn

Launch of Locative Augmented Reality App in Central Park, NYC: Digital Gallery of New Jersey’s Artist Geri Hahn

When: Thursday, Oct 22nd, 2024 | 12 - 1 PM EST

Zoom Recording

Provoked by numerous art-less walks during the pandemic, our Open Air Gallery AR project, is a smartphone-based locative media platform to display digital galleries and music albums in an interactive format. www.openairgalleryar.com 

Geri Hahn Art: Living Out Loud AR is a new type of interactive locative multimedia app for virtual exhibition, staged in Central Park, where people experience Augmented Reality (AR) art and music soundscapes on a walk. It features the art of New Jersey-based Geri Hahn, an artist-synesthete who uses synesthesia as her creative inspiration. The app includes music by Svetlana Rudenko (Piano, Logic Pro) and Mads Haahr (Synths), composed to transfer the art expression into music language using a unique multisensory design approach where art expression is translated into music texture, and location is chosen co-create the experience of natural landscape in the sense of psychogeography. Recorded talks with the artist give insights into her life in art, her inspiration and craft of expression. The Open Air Gallery AR project allows artists to exhibit to a wide audience without the limitations of a physical exhibition venue (e.g., availability, costs for rent). 

Previous AR exhibitions staged by Haunted Planet Studios include: 

• Synaesthesia Gallery AR [1] at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland (funding award from FENS and DANA Foundation for Brain Awareness Week 2021)

• Jack B. Yeats: Psychogeography AR [2], 2021, Dublin

• Alice Dali AR [3] at Durham University Botanic Garden, UK, 2024 (permanent experience)

• Yokai: Japanese Ghosts AR, 2024, staged at Herbert Park, Dublin, as part of Baggotonia Festival Fringe. 

Our research results showed a high level of interest in the genre and the promising social benefits of cooperative cultural play, fun for families, and great aesthetic experience for individuals interested in art and music. 

Background

Haunted Planet Studios (www.hauntedplanet.com) is a spin-out company from Trinity College Dublin, founded and led by Prof. Mads Haahr of the School of Computer Science and Statistics. The company specialises in Serious Games and Interactive Experiences for soft skills learning and cultural heritage, including art, music and history. The company has received awards from the Irish Games Fleadh (awarded by Engineers Ireland) and also been nominated for an award by the European Museum Academy. Its projects have received funding from the European Union (under Horizon 2020), the Velux Foundation, UNICEF, the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) and the DANA Foundation for Brain Awareness Week.