Olafur Eliasson launches joint virtual interactive museum amid COVID-19 pandemic. The artist has created various phenomenal objects you can revere and place in your own home in quarantine.
Amid self-isolation and the inability to go outside for non-essential matters, augmented reality exhibitions have risen to popularity. Artists and other creators are taking advantage of that platform to continue sharing their work despite being in confinement. Among them is no other than Danish-Icelandic conceptual artist Olafur Eliasson, known for his sculptures and large-scale installation art that utilize elemental materials like light, water, and air temperature for enhanced viewer experience. Olafur’s AR project is a collaboration with digital art app Acute Art and is titled “Wunderkammer”, which translates to “Cabinet of Curiosities.
Featuring augmented reality sculptures that can be virtually placed in the viewers’ homes, some of the “intriguing collection of natural elements, small artworks, and experiments” consist of flowers, birds and insects, a compass that is perpetually pointing North, the Northern Lights, and a solar-powered lantern of Olafur’s creation called a Little Sun.
In a statement regarding the project, Olafur explained: “The artwork is about challenging our perception of the everyday and actively welcoming that which lies on the boundary between the known and the unknown. It is about creating spaces that meld the everyday and the extraordinary—spaces that evoke vivid perceptions and embodied engagement.”
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The artist then added: ““Today, ‘the world as we know it’ is a phrase of the past. The current health crisis has brought our societies close to a halt, affecting our economies, our freedoms and even our social ties. We must take the time to empathize with all those struck by the crisis and also seize this opportunity to imagine together the earth that we want to inhabit in the future—in all its wonders and beauty, in the face of all the challenges ahead of us.”
Olafur will be adding more creative experimental work to the growing collection that is also his second digital project during this pandemic. The initiative is available for viewing for free via the Acute Art app. (Text Jordinna Joaquin)