Moving Memory is an augmented reality project that blends choreography and history with public art. By layering dance, animation, text, music, and interactive elements over sculptures, the AR experience invites viewers to explore themes of memory-making, nature, and technology in new ways.
How do we remember the place of the self, the landscape of the mind, by moving inside them? Moving Memory uses AR to enhance the way that Jaume Plensa’s sculpture Alchemist invites you to contemplate what it means to be you, offering an enclosure that is both interior and exterior, public and private, calling attention to embodied subjectivity while being inside a person comprised of numbers and symbols that refer to objective methods of quantifying experience.
When you step into Alchemist and begin the AR experience, you hear music and see playful, colorful animated figures performing motion-captured choreography questioning internal and external senses of self. Because Alchemist is a popular place to take selfies, the AR interaction invites you to reflect on and contribute your insights about what you intend to remember. You’re invited to mirror or respond to the choreography of the avatars in poses or dance. A prompt suggests you take a selfie to keep private or choose to post to social media.
Moving Memory uses AR to enhance how New Public Art’s interactive artwork Kempelen’s Owls makes a place to bridge the relationships between nature and technology, geometric and organic, clandestine and open, seen and hidden.
When you enter the space between Kemplen’s Owls and begin the AR experience, you hear music and see playful, colorful animated figures performing motion-captured choreography, and tiny sparkling streams of symbols: dodecahedrons, leaves, owls, and gears. Mirror or respond to the choreography of the avatars in poses or dance, and take photos with them in the app. If you discover the secret, you may feel seen indeed. What do you intend to remember?
