- re-imagining reality and bending the current rules of it -
I recently completed a 12-week Augmented Reality Residency with Adobe, where I was selected as one of three creative residents to create a series of experiments with Adobe Aero. It was a unique experience and I feel very grateful for the mentoring and how it impacted my work in a positive way.
While at first, I saw Aero as an intimidating tool with lots of restrictions, now I see it as a new and unique way to share my vision with people in this world. I learned that my art is not just defined by software or existing techniques, but it is the unique way how I see life. And even by jumping into a completely new project, this vision and perspective of life is still present.
Furthermore I learned that my focus is on the environment and our every-day places, which many of us take for granted. Everything in our life has a story and a great history to it, which we often forget or simply ignore. With Aero I truly discovered that with AR you have to think way more about the connection between reality and virtual, because you never know, who will open the effect and where, at which lighting condition. So my attempt was to simplify the effects as much as possible, to it's purest form, so they can work anywhere with ease. By making the effects so clean and easy to use, it's not intimidating for anyone and even someone who uses Aero for the first time, can enjoy it and even refine it, since everything is grouped as one object, they don't have to worry about animations or positions, they can simply use their fingers to swipe the object where they want it to have and get creative. I discovered that creating these kind of templates for my followers brings a lot of joy to my community and in return to me and it became a motive in my approach.
I always asked myself three important questions: 1. Can it be simplified? 2. Is it relatable? 3. Does it work in any environment?
Diving head first into AR was a much needed challenge this year. I was always a bit hesitant to do it. From time to time I experimented with Snapchat's AR software and also Spark AR from Facebook, which were very complex and had many options. While being able to do basic effects there, I thought that maybe this is too complex to explore and it's better to double down on my strengths. With Aero, I was surprised with a minimalistic and easy user interface which was all focused around building and creating - by trying.
I've learned that AR is not something extremely difficult or futuristic which should be left to others. No, I've learned that AR is an amazing emerging new tool, which anyone can use to express their creativity and to share it easily. I think, AR really is the next step, as our phones become more powerful, I can also see that some companies will come out with AR glasses one day and then a whole new world will be ready to explore. I think, then AR will be part of everything, by enhancing our existing reality. In my opinion, a dream for artists and creatives and I advise anyone to not be afraid to try it out themselves, since this shyness of a new software is natural. For me, I see AR as a crucial part of my future art. I also get asked a lot more by clients about creating AR effects, instead of classical 2D animation.
There is just so much to do, interactive galleries, enhancing statues and places in our city with custom creations. People could do something called "QR code bombing" by putting stickers into the city, anyone who is curious can scan it, which opens the Aero AR link and then loads an interactive experience in this exact location. I think there are so many possibilities. When I move back to Seoul, I think this could be a very interesting way to tell stories, to create unique content for clients or to simply collaborate with lovely people.
For anyone who wants to try AR and specifically AERO themselves, my clear advice is to not be afraid of trying out something new.
I see many artists who are very curious about it, but then say something like "But I am an Illustrator, AR is not for me", but in fact, it is! Nobody put up any rules, it's for anyone who is curious. Everyone feels like this. So please, dive in, have a lot of fun, try out your craziest ideas and don't forget to share it. We are all just creating together.
I want to also say special thanks to Silka Miesnieks & George Zisiadis, who gave insightful feedback and guided us through this residency.Thank you very much!
You can also find my other work on Instagram @vacades
