Our Blue Planet Turning Red: Amazing AR*t Installation in Los Angeles, in cross-generational co-creative collaboration

Vienna / Zurich / Berne / Los Angeles / Manchester / Los Angeles, February 2023

Los Angeles is one of the world‘s premier art cities, and in February 2023, a major art fair destination, with LA Art Show, Frieze Los Angeles, SPRING/BREAK Los Angeles, Felix Art Fair and an innovative Augmented Reality Art Exhibition in ART LAB on world-famous Abbot Kinney Boulevard.

Swiss artist Sarah Montani created together with Gerhard Knolmayer and a cross-generational team spread in 4 countries a unique Augmented Reality Art Installation concerning climate change.

It‘s the only artwork in Augmented Reality during those art fairs and the only one that can be visualized without an application.

Sarah Montani created an artwork together with Gerhard Knolmayer, whom she remembered as a professor of business informatics at the University of Berne. At that time, she was studying law, starting her legal tech company and teaching as an assistant lecturer at the Institute for Information Technology for Law, University of Berne. Gerhard Knolmayer supported her with knowledge and experience.

2022 they met again in Vienna, more than 20 years later. Gerhard had started a second career as a painter after retiring as a professor and lives and works now in his native city Vienna. Sarah Montani was leading painting workshops at Kunstfabrik Wien. They talked about their activities and experiences as artists. Gerhard says „I was very impressed by Sarah's pioneering role as a digital artist.“ Gerhard applied already existing AR objects from this homepage to real art objects shown at documenta 15, 2022, in Kassel, which resulted in interesting additional perceptions of some artworks.

On the other hand, Sarah was interested by Gerhard's paintings, some of them dealing with socio-economic issues. They decided that Gerhard would paint two views of our beautiful blue planet. He used red colors we associate with the desert to visualize some parts of our globe which we are currently transforming into dry, hot, barren areas with inhumane living conditions.

Starting with these images, presented here as a diptych, Sarah directed the process to translate these images into a 3-dimensional AR object. The implementation was done by Joey Montani and Jamie F.G. After a few loops of creating and evaluating, an impressive artificial globe was created which debuted at the Los Angeles Art Lab in February 2023.

"I really enjoyed working in this truly international team. Hopefully we can approach people who can't be reached with scientific results and arguments by giving them the opportunity to play with Mother Earth. Maybe the atypical colors of our landscapes will give them a different perspective on the climate crisis and ways to reduce its impact," says Gerhard Knolmayer. "In German, we can use the proximity of the words 'spielen' and 'verspielen': We may play with our Augmented Art planet, we can shake it, but we should not gamble away our real planet."

„When you look into a small mirror, you see your face. When you look into a large one, you see your entire body. Imagine to look at yourself into a huge mirror placed on the moon. You don‘t see yourself anymore, you see our planet, and you are part of this planet: This is your ‚planetary-self‘. By harming our planet, we harm ourselves. AR involves new senses and gives us a new way to mirror our reality. Maybe it helps us to change perspectives to more compassion with our planet – and with ourselves.“, says Sarah Montani.

AR*t Installation 

The photos of the original physical artwork are shown in the exhibition together with the Augmented Reality Artwork (AR*t) - as interconnected installation. Furthermore, the QR associated with the Augmented Reality Artwork lets you play with this virtual world on your smartphone in any desired surrounding.

Location & Dates

The installation can be visited at the ART LAB on world-famous Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Los Angeles, US, February 1-15, 2023.

Team

Gerhard Knolmayer, Ph.D., 1948, retired professor of information systems, painter focusing on socioeconomic topics.
Located in Vienna, Austria.   knolmayer.art
Sarah Montani, lic.iur., 1972, Digital pioneer, artist focusing on the Metaverse and Augmented Reality.
Based in Zürich, Switzerland.   sarahmontani.com
Joey Montani, 1996, 3D Digital Creator and Founder of APTIQ.
Located in Sonceboz near Berne, Switzerland.   aptiq.ch
Jamie F.G, 2000, 3D Artist, based near Manchester and currently traveling around the world. sarahmontani.com/jamiefg