AR AWAKENING: X-REALITIES OF HONG KONG LAYERING 擴增虛實 切片香港

 Desmond Hui (editor)

When Augmented Reality (AR) becomes both the means and end of public art, artistic imagination reaches new heights of freedom of expression and exploration. The AR Public Art Initiative conceptualised and curated by Professor Desmond Hui at the Hang Seng University of Hong Kong and supported by the Art Promotion Office of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department explores the mobile aesthetics and the relationship of mixed-realities technology in the platformisation of society. The eight participating artists — Tamiko Thiel, Desmond Hui, Chris Cheung, Helen Pun, Phoebe Man, Ellen Pau, Cédric Maridet and John Craig Freeman — revealed their creative processes with themes on science and environment, aesthetics, soundscape, dreams, digital folklore, Hong Kong spirit, collective memory and many more.

This book is ‘augmented’ also as a portal — interfacing with editorial case studies on localised Pokémon GO, Forensic Architecture, ‘hologram’ Hawking, robotic hongkong girl, genetic facial recognition and the ‘data religion’ of Yuval Noah Harari. AR Awakening tries to biopsy the techno-mapping of our society from alarming algorithms.