The Audience and Artist Interactivity in Augmented Reality Art: The Solo Exhibition on the Flame Series

Abstract

ABSTRACTTraditional art exhibitions are typically limited to artworks being viewed on the walls of galleries and museums. While walking around galleries, viewers often view artworks spontaneously within a matter of a few seconds or minutes. The act of viewing artworks can take many forms; one might quickly glance at the works, or stare at them, or intensely view the works as a whole group and/or in part. The frequent assumption is that the artist is communicating their vision from one direction. This paper explores how augmented reality art (AR) has affected viewing behaviours and norms, and the ways in which viewers experience traditional paintings, as well as new media arts. Based on Cecilia Suhr's invitational solo exhibition, Flame, at the Nameseoul University IANG Gallery in Seoul, Korea, in May 2017, the goal of this paper is threefold: 1) to unpack the conceptual framework of the Flame series by loosely drawing on Deleuze's notion of “becoming”; 2) to explore audiences’ viewing behaviours of AR art in relation to the inherent characteristics and ontology of the AR medium; and 3) to problematise how the AR medium affects the hegemonic tension between artist and audience in the dichotomisation of active/passive audiences.