For centuries the art world consisted of physical reality – a painting or sculpture created by the artist in the traditional fashion as one would expect. As new tastes and ideas developed over the years, different styles and mediums developed, surrealism, cubism and modern art, along with sculptural installations making their way into galleries and exhibitions, also bringing their own new styles and genres – from unmade beds to chopped up livestock in formaldehyde. The art world has always continued to reinvent itself as times and tastes change – granted, not always with the approval of onlookers of course, but then part of the attraction is often the “shock” factor of change and difference.
Technology has begun to play a significantly larger role for both artists and those appreciating their work with the development of both virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). The difference between the two in laymen terms is VR encompasses the onlookers entire visual space with the aid of a visual headset (think Oculus or Decentraland for example) whereas with AR, only part of what the onlooker sees can be changed or animated when viewing through a suitable device such as smart phone camera using an app, or Google glass.
An example of VR from blockchain company Decentraland that enables users to create their own worlds in a VR space:
The use of AR enables artists to add considerably more layers and depth to their works, aside from just simply replacing one section in a painting with another still image, animation, effects and even technical details can be applied relatively easily with several purpose built apps. It doesn’t end there – 3D visualistations can also be used to make the works even more intricate as the work by Luis Valle demonstrates:
AR exhibitions are beginning to become more mainstream with a number of events being hosted around the globe by traditional art houses and newcomers alike – considering a vast proportion of the population now owns a smartphone and social apps such as Instagram making the works themselves more accessible, the trend appears to be set to grow considerably as computing power increases and easy to use applications are created for smartphone users.
Continuing our series of posts explaining how “smART” Art solves several issues for artists, and how “smART” enabled artwork combats counterfeits and provenance fraud – this post covers the additional features and subsequent benefits Thomas Crown “smART” Art provides as a result of integrating blockchain with the art world...
