Manifest.AR / Tamiko Thiel

Members of the artist collective Manifest.AR bring their augmented reality projects – fresh from the Venice Biennale 2011 – to the Dumbo waterfront. Download the Layar APP, search Dumbo and view the various points of interest.

This series of works takes images of contemporary artists whose works have been censored, reduces them to gold silhouettes and places them in the midst of terms of transgression. Each erased silhouette stands for countless unknown or lesser known artists who face censorship or persecution with no public support. The artworks premiered as an intervention at the Venice Biennial 2011 and are in invitational shows at the Samek Art Gallery and ISEA2011/Kasa Gallery.

All Virtual Pavilions Projects:
John Cleater, ‘Sky Pavilions’
Tamiko Thiel, ‘Shades of Absence: Public Voids’
Mark Skwarek & Alan Sondheim, ‘The Island’
John Craig Freeman, ‘Water wARs’
Lily & Honglei, ‘The Crystal Coffin’
Will Pappenheimer, ‘Revolving Bridges’
Sander Veenhof, ‘Screensaver Anno 2011′

Artist Statement / Bio

Manifest.AR is an international artists collective working with emergent forms of augmented reality as interventionist public art. The group sees this medium as a way of transforming public space and institutions by installing virtual objects and artworks which respond to and overlay the configuration of located physical meaning. Utilizing this technology as artwork is an entirely new proposition and explores all that we know and experience as the mixture of the real and the hyper-real. Physically, nothing changes, the audience can simply download and launch an Augmented Reality Browser app on their iPhone or Android and aim the devices’ camera to view the world around them. The application uses geolocation software to superimpose computer generated three-dimensional art objects, enabling the public to see the work integrated into the physical location as if it existed in the real world.