This thesis explores the use of location-based augmented reality to transform our perception of the built environment. In the artwork, the historic Armory building in the Town of Blacksburg which serves as home to the School of Visual Arts (SOVA) at Virginia Tech is used as a locus of changing functions, social impact, and evolution. In this case, its history is used to creatively visualize the overlooked narrative in familiar spaces through augmented reality (AR) murals. AR is an artistic medium that unveils rich hidden histories, sparks conversation, and promotes deeper connection between people and places. I drew inspiration from contemporary artists such as Brian Peterson, the social narrative of the WPA mural initiative, and Kandinsky's vibrant abstract work. The project utilizes Google's ARCore framework in the Unity game engine as well as Google's Geospatial API with the aim to creatively reveal hidden narratives in places and promote positive social engagements. / Master of Fine Arts / Augmented reality (AR) has increasingly become popular and social media applications like Instagram and Snapchat and more immersive mixed reality headsets like the Meta Quest 3 has allowed people all over the world to connect in unique ways and have shared unreal experiences. AR allows digital visuals to exist and blend with the space around us. For me, this unlocks the potential to create new forms of artworks, to creatively display those unreal or forgotten events that have happened in the past and because it is AR, they can exist right at the space they once occurred. One benefit of this is that it can be applied to any space, landmarks, or obscure places, and can be used to pull people together to engage in new ways. After looking at works from other artists; muralists, painters, AR artists, I created an AR mural artwork to creatively display the hidden narratives of the Armory building in Blacksburg Virginia. I used artistic and technical tools such as Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Google's AR technologies and Unity, a 3-dimensional and 2-dimensional game creation software to create the AR murals and lock it to the longitude and latitude of the space around the Armory building. One reason I chose this place as a point of reference is because its function has changed multiple times since its construction in 1936.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/119510 |
| Date | 25 June 2024 |
| Creators | Okoro, Joshua Oghenekevwe |
| Contributors | Art and Art History, Duer, Zachary Raymond, Drum, Meredith, Tucker, Thomas James, King, Nathan |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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