Abandon Normal Devices

Researching into the group Abandon Normal Devices and the projects and festivals that they have created such as the AND Festival 2021. Creating the festival during covid the AND festival was completely online, with the website having a map of the space that would have been in if were to have happened without the covid restrictions. The user of the website is able to click on the different works within the maps allowing the user to then be taken to the artists website to find out more information. Through the AND Festival I think that its is interesting in the way that although the festival happened completely digitally there continues to be a connection to the physical space that people may already have a connection to outside of the festival. https://andfestival.world

The Blue Violet River by the artist Anita Fontaine updated the guided tour of Liverpool by placing tablets on to the mersey ferry, through these tablets an augmented view of reality is seen of the futuristic climate effected Liverpool skyline. In using the tablets to show what Liverpool may look like if action is not taken to change the path that we are going down with the effects of climate change. Having the work be viewed as augmented reality rather than a video or a form of virtual reality connects the ideas with the physical space, allowing audiences to connect the information that we are continually given about the affects of climate change to the reality that we may live in if the behaviour to the planet continues. 

Incorporating this research into my project development I have been further researching into augmented reality rather than a completely using virtual reality. I think that by linking the digital world to the real world allows for a greater understanding of the of the work I hope for audiences to engage with. In moving out of the effects of Covid where everything was forced online the link to reality through the use of a guided map similar to that of the AND festival of 2021, encourages audience to engage with spaces outside of the home. Although the lockdowns over the last couple of years highlighted the ways in which technology can engage people with spaces that they could not physically visit, many found the lack of interaction with real spaces lonely and claustrophobic. In combining the use of XR and physical space i hope to be able to create an interesting way to engage with the arts as well as with space.