Tradition Goes Viral: Embedding Lost Art in the Cityscape

Infusing the everyday environment with artistic elements using augmented reality software on hand-held devices reveals the prospect of enabling traditions to erupt into everyday life ´on their own terms´, potentially shocking us into a recognition of a cultural legacy that has disappeared from the ´modern´ or ´industrialized´ cityscape, yet nonetheless, retaining a potency of continuing relevance and significance. In the case of artistic traditions that have not been able to colonize the urban space, either through the nature of the materials traditionally used or the reliance on pre-literary media, these technologies provide the prospect of cultural ´embedding´. In this project we have investigated the possibility of developing cultural icons that spawn in real time within the environments captured on hand-held devices. They are dynamic embellishments that accentuate the fact that they come from living traditions, and are not the relics of a museum exhibit or anthropological study.