Off the Wall - Berlin's first VR / AR art competition
Contemporary and traditional artists will work for the first time in the Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality, creating a new form of urban art, writing a new chapter in Berlin's art history. "Off the Wall" is organized by VR artist Miguelangelo Rosario & Grover to show how much creativity can be unleashed by this new medium in urban art.
Virtual reality
Virtual Reality (VR) is often viewed negatively today in society as a medium for freaks who play ego shooters and porn. The technology has developed enormously since the last hype in the 1990s. By now, millions of people have access to this technology. We are just beginning to experiment with the possibilities of this new medium for the unfolding of creativity and to understand how VR will change our society - the arts and artists themselves will certainly play an important role in this development.
Urban art and augmented reality
At the beginning of the 20th century, few brave people dared to voice their opinions on political and social issues in public places. With the emergence of graffiti as an anarchic urban art form, the city itself became a medium. Today, there are more mediums than ever before, and Augmented Reality (AR) is one of them. AR allows smartphones to enrich locations with additional information and share this information with others. These places become an unlimited digital canvas for everyone, creating a new, hidden forms of urban art.
The Challenge
Off The Wall is the first challenge of its kind taking talented ‘analogue’ artists, and putting them into VR and AR applications to bring their artworks to life in a whole new realm. The competition commences on September 18th 2018, with many well-known Berlin Street Artists coming together in the VR Lounge Berlin in the Potsdamer Platz Arkaden. The 20 participating artists will be introduced to the tools for creating VR and AR artworks with the assistance of a VR coach. There will be workshops for each competitor on the VR/AR hardware & software during the competition period.
Each artist has a dedicated poster, that will be placed around the city, featuring an interactive word-cloud. If you set up a smartphone with the app Arize, and direct your camera onto these posters, the artworks can be viewed with AR and more information about the event can be accessed! From the entries submitted, an expert panel of judges will judge the artworks in VR in Styly and nominate 10 finalists across different categories.
Prizes including VR capable computers, VR equipment and much more were donated by sponsors for the winners. The hardware will allow the artists to continue working after the competition, to gain more experience through this new artistic platform.
