Artist Ivan Toth Depeña Launches Miami-Wide Augmented Reality Artwork
- MIAMI, Florida
- /
- April 30, 2016
Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places, The John. S and James L. Knight Foundation, and Locust Projects, Miami’s longest running experimental art space, announce the launch of Lapse on May 30, a major public art commission by Miami native, Charlotte-based artist Ivan Toth Depeña.
Lapse consists of six interwoven components: The Visions and The Collective, a series of publically accessible murals; The Sounds, a GPS-based audio soundscape discoverable on Miami’s downtown MetroMover; The Writings, a virtual prose experience in Museum Park; The Sculpture, an augmented experience triggered by a public sculpture; and The Moment, a site-specific exhibition at Locust Projects’ space in the Miami Design District. Lapse is the newest chapter of the artist’s ongoing series The Fallen Sky Chronicles. This series has been developing for several years in tandem with personal writings about a character who becomes infected by a technological glitch, restructuring the physical world and morphing consciousness with images and data found on the web. The projects in the series employ chance as a structural element and consist of paintings, drawings, sculptures, and video/new media installations.
Connecting each of these six components is Lapse, a custom mobile application. Through groundbreaking augmented reality (AR) technology, Lapse responds to triggers and activates virtual and auditory experiences with a mobile device’s camera lens and sound output. The augmented reality technology overlays Depeña’s visual and audio creations over site-specific Miami locations.
Dissolving the boundaries of physical reality and an alternative, virtual world, Lapse continues The Fallen Sky Chronicles’ narrative, which envisions a disruption of real world time and space. Imagining a moment of transcendence in human consciousness, Lapse exposes a world where, as The Fallen Sky Chronicles describes “the delicate stitches holding their realities together, and those of other dimensions, had begun to intertwine and unravel.” Referencing ideas such as the “singularity,” a term used to define the hypothetical event when artificial intelligence surpasses that of humans, Lapse imagines our brains being fused with technology, revealing an augmented consciousness imbued with images and data. In this way, Lapse creates a space to both revere and meditate on our increasingly technologically entwined lives.
How & where to experience Ivan Toth Depeña’s Lapse:
Download the Lapse mobile app onto a device at www.lapsemiami.com after May 30, 2016 to experience the following:
The Visions is a series of virtual murals inspired by the invisible data and information that is constantly being transmitted between and around us. Using the Lapse app as a discovery tool, look for large painted trigger images that resemble pixels painted on the wall. Hold your device’s camera up to the trigger to reveal virtual layers designed by Depeña. The Visions can be found on the exterior wall of Locust Projects, 3852 North Miami Avenue, on the Cultural Plaza façade of Miami-Dade Public Library, 101 Flagler Street, and scattered throughout Miami’s downtown. Use the map included in Lapse to discover additional sites.
The Collective is a continuation of the virtual mural series The Visions through smaller compositions contributed by various artists. The locations of the work are not on the map—you can serendipitously discover the trigger images painted, stenciled, or applied in random locations throughout the city. Contributing artists include: Alan Gutierrez, Brian Butler, Dana Donaty, Jim Drain, Justin H. Long, Kelley Johnson, Kevin Arrow, Barron Scherer, Domingo Castillo, Moira Holohan, Wendy Wischer, John F. Simon Jr., Nathan Selikoff, Jillian Mayer, John Bailly, Natalia Bailly, Matthew Steele, Isaac Payne, Stephen Hayes, Todd Stewart and others to be added.
The Sounds was produced in collaboration Brad Laner, who is best known as the founder of the shoegaze band Medicine. Laner worked with Depeña’s concept and contributed an interactive musical composition for users traveling on the MetroMover, Miami’s aboveground public rail system. The Omni Loop, one of MetroMover’s train commuter lines, features harmonic layering that is triggered by GPS at each station. The Sounds results in a multi-sensory sonic landscape that is different each time it is experienced. No two iterations of this score will ever be the same.
The Writings was created in collaboration with Miami-based artist Jillian Mayer. A written prose piece develops as the viewer follows a virtual walking tour of Museum Park in downtown Miami. Mayer worked with Depeña’s concept and helped create excerpts from a fictional notebook that reveal thoughts scribbled down in various states of altered consciousness. Time, memory, love, and reality are all discussed as the texts fade in and out. The Writings is experienced by following orange icons that designate the locations of the floating text by appearing on your screen when you launch the app in the vicinity of Museum Park. Once the viewer is close enough to the orange icon, it will change revealing the hidden text in a three-dimensional environment.
The Sculpture is an augmented experience activated by Arc, a public art sculpture in Aventura, FL. The physical sculpture, created by Depeña for a prior Miami-Dade Art in Public Places commission, was designed using the wind data from Hurricane Wilma, which destroyed the library that was once there. Using the Lapse app as a discovery tool, visitors will be able to visualize virtual wind currents, generated in real time flowing around the sculpture.
The Moment is a site-specific installation at Locust Projects in the Miami Design District launched in conjunction with Lapse. The Moment consists of a multimedia installation featuring the structure of a split-in-half suburban house that reveals a light-filled, geode-like interior. As described in the Fallen Sky Chronicles, the installation illustrates the instant when a breakthrough to an alternate world occurs, the first event in the sequence unlocking the augmented reality dimension. The exhibition is accompanied by an installation of one of The Visions murals on the southern-facing exterior of Locust Projects’ exhibition space. In addition, Depeña created a limited edition work on paper available for sale, The Moment (Compiled Process). The print is also activated by Lapse to reveal a kaleidoscopic burst of color and movement.
Ivan Toth Depeña: The Moment
On view at Locust Projects through June 6, 2016
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-6pm
www.locustprojects.org
The augmented reality aspect of The Moment is accessible via the mural on the side of Locust Projects’ building. There is currently a tablet device available for viewing the augmented mural at Locust Projects.
Ivan Toth Depeña: Lapse
The public launch of the project’s mobile app Lapse will be available for download for iPhone and Android users after May 30, 2016.
Media ready images at:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/82b1ff8gyol087e/AABOJWeC2vO4jJu_noMJmT_la?dl=0
Print images available upon request.
ABOUT IVAN TOTH DEPEÑA
Ivan Toth Depeña lives between Miami and Charlotte, NC, where he is currently an affiliate artist-in-residence at the McColl Center for Arts + Innovation. With degrees in Architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and the University of Miami, Depeña’s artistic production is informed by his experience in art, architecture, technology, and design. Depeña explores the intersection between different disciplines with the goal of ushering in the moment when these elements can come together seamlessly. Occupying multiple modalities such as traditional media, interactivity/responsiveness, and high tech fabrication methods, Depeña’s work crisscrosses the line between chance and intention. He has exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions, nationally and internationally, including at the McColl Center, NC; New Britain Museum of American Art, CT; Miami Art Museum, Frost Art Museum, and the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, FL. Depeña has recently completed large-scale public commissions in New York, NY; Denver, CO; Albuquerque, NM; Gainesville, and Miami, FL. His work is held in numerous public and private collections.
ABOUT LOCUST PROJECTS
Locust Projects is a not-for-profit exhibition space dedicated to providing contemporary visual artists with the freedom to experiment with new ideas without the pressures of gallery sales or the limitations of conventional exhibition spaces. Local, national, and international artists are encouraged to create site-specific installations as an extension of their work. Locust Projects supports the local community through educational initiatives and programming that is free to the public.
ABOUT MIAMI-DADE ART IN PUBLIC PLACES
Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places, a program of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, serves the community through the implementation of art installations dedicated to enriching the public environment and to preserving and enhancing the artistic and civic pride of Miami-Dade County. Miami-Dade Art in Public Places promotes collaboration and creative art projects that improve the visual quality of public spaces. These public art installations transform public spaces from ordinary civic areas to sites that can lift the spirit and connect with the community.
ABOUT THE KNIGHT FOUNDATION
Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. We believe that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged.
CREDITS AND SUPPORT
Additional Support from:
Locust Projects
UNC Charlotte School of Architecture / Chris Beorkrem
McColl Center for Arts and Innovation
Software Commissioned by:
Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places
Knight Foundation
Artist / Concept:
Ivan Toth Depeña
AR Software Development:
Powered by The Heavy Projects
Art Direction and Graphic Design of the Mobile App:
Ivan Toth Depeña + Chris Pacetti
Overall App Soundtrack and Composition of The Sounds:
Brad Laner
Curator/Consultant (The Visions / The Collective / The Words):
Amanda Sanfilippo
Contributing Writers:
Hugh Henry, Nathaniel Sandler, Teela Depena, Jillian Mayer
Additional Software and Technical Support:
Dan Henry and Dylan Romer
Studio Assistants:
Caleb Saul and Nick Bloomberg
Contact:
Dan SchwartzSusan Grant Lewin Associates
212-947-4557
dan@susangrantlewin.com
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