ATLAS is a work between digital arts and visual arts, under the form of an interactive and scenographic exhibition (a mix between real models and an interactive virtual world). After being plunge in an archipelago of poetical islands, spectators are invited to build virtual cities. For that, they have a « seed launcher ». Each launch will make an house grow. The growing houses follows some urbanistic rules, they adapts to their environnement: cities in the cloud, uprooted cities, cities on stilts, flying cities… Spectators creates empty cities, without inhabitants, giving a large place to imagine what happens inside these houses. These cities take on a life of their own, with or without the interactions of users, like living organisms… The names of these cities are inspired by forgotten or immersed cities: Xanadu, Canope, Kerma, Kitej… The work consists of creating huge cities, for wandering and loose yourself. To provoque a reflexion on the topics of urbanism, architecture, and their influence on our lifestyles. And giving life to inanimate things...

Yann Deval is an interaction and motion designer based in Brussels. Marie-Ghislaine Losseau, a visual artist specialized in participatory scenography. On the other hand, Wekit enhances reality with various mediums (AR, wearables) to use as a new augmented medium, mainly for professional training. Atlas is the fruit of their collaboration. It is a work at the meeting point of digital and visual art, and takes the shape of an interactive exhibition. In mixed realities, the user first experiences, without devices, the landscape of the exhibition, made up of dozens of wooden buildings. The user is invited to explore an archipelago of floating islands in VR and, ultimately, to build cities in AR between in the digital, dream-like world, and the real world. All layers of reality are interconnected. The buildings follow different urbanistic rules depending on where you build them (floating, on a wall…), and are all the results of workshops made in schools in Molenbeek. There is no other goal than to build, wander, and alternate between layers of reality…

Video drone of Atlas - STRP 2019

The initial challenge of Wekit was mostly focused on the AR side of their product. As their motto is to use “reality as a medium”, they are working to find out the best ways to add information on top of sight to enhance it. In that regard, they want to explore and find out aesthetical guidelines, UI principles from which real knowledge can be drawn in order to reinforce the user experience. On their side, the artists were looking for top-notch AR technology to give a new approach to their work, to explore new sides of their topic. Furthermore, they were looking for the technical knowledge and mentoring that would allow to seamlessly integrate this new medium in their universe. Innovation happened at the meeting point. While providing technical guidance and mentoring on one side and exploring without any other boundaries than soft/hardware limits on the other side, the co-creation team reached measurable results and was able to output knowledge out of the work produced, in the field of AR aesthetic and interaction principles, in particular how the mapping of the field of view of the Hololenses in AR helps to feel depth and reliefs and to interact with the surrounding environment.

Residency video

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