Author: Efstratios Geronikolakis

Augmented reality and puzzle rooms aren’t necessarily the first things that come to mind when thinking about art museums, but a new program being designed for the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) aims to change that. Thanks to the work of University of Minnesota technology architect Colin McFadden and digital preservation specialist Samantha Porter, with the help of a $50,000 3M Art and Technology Award, Mia will soon become one giant puzzle experience that visitors can play for free. The program, Riddle Mia This, will work as an “application that uses augmented reality to turn the museum into a puzzle room,” McFadden...

As the world starts to get its first taste of augmented reality technology through smartphones and developer headsets, not only do we have whole new virtual worlds to enjoy, but there is a new virtual veneer over the real one that can be exploited. No doubt it will eventually be used to put obnoxious advertising everywhere, but then artists can always hit back — with digital graffiti. In fact, the first example of this has already made a real (virtual) world appearance, at the Bellevue Arts Museum in Washington state. Visitors with a Microsoft Hololens headset would have seen...

Google has partnered with CyArk, the non-profit studio behind VR app MasterWorks: Journey Through History (2018), to expand CyArk’s mission to 3D laser-scan the world’s historical sites and provide open access to the data. Called the Open Heritage Project, Google and CyArk aim to preserve the historical sites digitally for future generations in case disaster strikes Google has published CyArk’s 3D scans on the Google Arts & Culture mobile app and on the Open Heritage Project website, giving it a place where users can freely explore and learn about some of the most endangered and off-limits historical sites on the planet. According to a report by The Verge,...