First "AR bombing" - activist smears augmented reality artwork

The US start-up Snap places AR artworks in major cities such as New York, Paris and London. A New York artist protests against the commercial utilisation of digital space and defaces one of the artworks with digital graffiti.

Snapchat users strolling through New York's Central Park have recently come across a giant dog made of golden balloons. The sculpture by US artist Jeff Koons is purely digital and only appears on the display of a smartphone.

The US start-up Snap, which launched a platform a few days ago that anchors digital art in real locations, is responsible for the placement of the AR artwork. If you want to discover the artwork, you have to be physically present and visualise it with your smartphone. Further digital exhibitions are to be launched in New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Toronto, Sydney, London, Paris and Rio de Janeiro.

Smeared with graffiti in protest

Yesterday, the New York artist, designer and activist protested Sebastian Errazuriz in a symbolic action against the placement of the artwork in virtual public space. Referring to graffiti jargon, the artist speaks of the first "AR bombing" in history, meaning the quick and illegal application of graffiti.

As Errazuriz was unable to manipulate Snap's AR artwork directly, he loaded a three-dimensional model of the dog into a 3D programme, added graffiti to it and anchored the result in exactly the same place as the Snap artwork with the help of his own AR app.

A contested digital space

What is the artist trying to achieve? On Instagram Errazuriz writes that the boundaries between the real and virtual worlds will gradually dissolve in the future and that augmented reality could lead to public spaces being flooded with brands and advertising aimed at manipulation and control.

"If Snapchat and Jeff Koons are the first to bring a GPS-located, commercial AR artwork into the world, then we are the first to damage it in order to question its legitimacy," Errazuriz continues.

Rules and laws for the digital world

With the advent of technologically advanced AR glasses, the digital sphere is likely to overlap the physical world even more and become an even bigger part of social reality than it is today. It is quite conceivable that in such a future there will be a communally shared AR channel that will be just as contested by companies as the physical space. At some point, we will probably need rules and laws on how to deal with it.

"It all seems like a joke, but I think we need to start asking ourselves questions like this and thinking about how much of the public virtual space we want to make available to companies," writes Errazuriz.

Source: Vrodo