SensUs. Augmented Nature-Cultures augmented reality (AR) exhibition produced by RIXC (Latvia) and NAIA (Germany) will be on view in Friedrichsplatz, in front of the Museum of Natural History Museum in Karlsruhe from August 16 to September 17, 2023. The SensUs Augmented Reality artworks will be possible to be experienced also in Riga (Latvia) from September 21 to November 11, 2023 in the Esplanade park and in the Latvian National Museum of Natural History as part of the RIXC Art Science Festival: Crypto, Art and Climate.

The SensUs AR exhibition features 8 virtual artworks created by artists from Riga (Latvia) and Karlsruhe – Jung Eun Lee, Isabella Münnich, Anna Manankina, Jurģis Peters, Sabīne Šnē, Rihards Vītols, Zane Zelmene.
The exhibition curators Daria Mille, Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits invited the artists to use augmented reality (AR) to make visible the invisible processes in urban nature, explore the symbiotic relationship between social and ecological systems, and trace the historical and contemporary trajectories of nature-culture sites in the city.

SensUs artworks can be virtually experienced in urban environments via the SensUs Art platform, which can be downloaded to your smart device here: https://sensusart.rixc.org/

Exhibition video teaser: https://youtu.be/jdoqE2pWCgo

SensUs. Augmented Nature-Cultures Augmented Reality (AR) exhibition, produced by the New Media Culture Centre RIXC (Riga) in collaboration with the NAIA (Naturally Artificial Intelligence Art) Art Association (Karlsruhe) opens today, 16 August, first in Karlsruhe.
In 2019, Karlsruhe received the UNESCO designation “Creative City of Media Arts” as the first and so far only city in Germany joining in the international UNESCO Creative Cities network. In Karlsruhe, against this backdrop, a network of more than 40 institutions from the fields of art, culture, science, creative industries, the digital scene, municipal enterprises and departments has committed itself to form a sustainable urban society with a special focus on creativity and culture. While rooted and primarily created in Karlsruhe for UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts program, the Augmented Reality exhibition SensUs aims at expanding its nature–culture explorations into the international contexts by connecting with Riga (which is yet to apply for this status), and Toronto (another UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts).

SensUs exhibition will be on view as part of the UNESCO Media Arts City Karlsruhe festival: Medienkunst ist hier featuring digital, interactive and virtual artworks in an urban setting. Before the official opening, the general public was already able to get a first glimpse of the SensUs artworks at the Kamuna Karlsruhe Museum Night program on August 6 in cooperation with the Karlsruhe National Museum of Natural History:

SensUs is augmented reality exhibition makes visible the invisible processes in urban nature, explores the symbiotic relationship between social and ecological systems, and traces the historical and contemporary trajectories of nature-culture sites in the city. The exhibition curators Rasa Smite, Raitis Smits and Daria Mille invited artists to create augmented reality artworks for specific places in urban environments where nature and culture intersect such as urban forests and parks, botanical gardens, and natural history museums.

For example, the German artist Isabella Münnich in her mush/room: growing together artwork performs a digital study of 'interactional landscapes', during her daily walks in the forests around Karlsruhe, the artist continuously observed mushrooms growing on fallen trees, their cycle of growth and decay. The artist captured these transformations of natural objects using digital scanning techniques (photogrammetry), creating digital sculptures that the visitor can experience by approaching them, walking around them, or even going inside to see in detail the striking structures of digitally transformed mushrooms.

One of the exhibition participants is also the Ukrainian artist Anna Manankina who currently lives in Karlsruhe and is a residency artist at the ZKM Center for Art and Media. The speculative Vegetable kingdom, vegetable anarchy artwork by Anna Manankina is an AI-generated species of plants, created using images from the Museum of Natural History, which are in a continuous mutation, evolving to a stage after which humans aren’t needed anymore as any plant can take the shape of a human…  

Jung Eun Lee (Karlsruhe based South Korean artist) in her work Pond Creatures: Becoming One, Being Plural draws associative parallels between the biological being and social existence of both – non-human (pond creatures) and human (observer); the artwork is based on the artist's observations of “pond creatures” living in the artist's own built aquariums (of the glass jars ) and their unique way of symbiotic living…

The AI-generated 3D artwork Mežs 2.0 (Forest 2.0) by Latvian artist Rihards Vītols is a utopian, speculative vision of the new, more resistant tree species that simulates proposals and challenges for the future changes in nature and the environment. He uses AI algorithms to continue the evolution and mutation of the species launched in his Mežs 1.0 project, and creates a new collection of unimaginable tree species.

The Cultivation of Domestication artwork by the Latvian artist Jurģis Peters is based on contrarian hypothesis by the historian J.N. Harari's, where he suggests the idea of the first "domesticated" cereals – wheat – which contributed to the agrarian revolution, actually domesticated us, not the other way around. An interactive 3D object is created using AI-generated images, addressing questions of plant-human relations in changing power positions. 

Omnisence by Zane Zelmene and Soil Mate by Sabine Šnē were first exhibited in Esplanade Park in Riga, Latvia as part of the previous RIXC curated exhibition on the Sensus Art platform in 2021. By researching historical materials and evidence, the Omnisence artwork by Zane Zelmene (Latvia) reconstructs the landscapes of Esplanade Park in Riga in different periods – from prehistory and the Middle Ages, when Mount Kube appears there, to the past century in the shape of 360-degree photo spheres.

Soil Mate by Sabīne Šnē (Latvia) explores the relationship between art, mythology and science. Inspired by the aesthetics of Stone Age's Venus figures, the virtual 3D sculpture represents the contemporary version of Gaia. It is covered with the texture generated using various soil samples found in the Esplanade Park in Riga.

Augmented reality artworks in Karlsruhe will be on view at the State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe and in Friedrichsplatz from August 16 to September 17, 2023. 

The exhibition opening takes place today, August 16, as part of the Media Art ist Hier festival, organised by the Karlsruhe City Culture Department, which takes place in the urban environment and is part of the official program of Karlsruhe, UNESCO City of Media Arts.
https://www.cityofmediaarts.de/en/2023-07-31/new-season-of-media-art-is-here/ 

Virtual artworks in Riga will be on view at the Latvian National Museum of Natural History and in the urban environment in Esplanade Park from September 21 to November 11, 2023, as part of the RIXC Art and Science Festival: Crypto, Art and Climate.

The opening program of the SensUs exhibition in Riga will take place on Thursday, September 21 at 12.00 featuring a guided tour in Esplanade Park, led by the exhibition curators Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits, together with the exhibition artists. Registration for the tour (free of charge) will be open from September 1: rixc@rixc.org. Follow the information at http://rixc.org

SensUs AR exhibition artists: Jung Eun LEE (KR/DE), Isabella MÜNNICH (DE), Anna MANANKINA (UA/DE), Jurģis PETERS (LV), Sabīne ŠNĒ (LV), Rihards VĪTOLS (LV), Zane ZELMENE (LV). 

Curators: Daria MILLE (DE), Rasa SMITE and Raitis SMITS / RIXC.

SensUs AR artworks are digital 3D objects that, due to their large scale, are best experienced in urban environments, where they virtually extend the urban nature-culture sites. During the exhibition, curator and artist led tours will be organised in both Riga and Karlsruhe.

More information about SensUs. Augmented Nature-Cultures AR exhibition project:
https://sensusart.rixc.org/

Exhibition video teaser: https://youtu.be/jdoqE2pWCgo

Instructions for viewing the works:
To view AR artwork 1) download the Sensus Art app from the Google Play Store or App Store, 2) open the app, select the artwork you want to "experience", point the phone or tablet camera down / towards the ground 3) select where you want to "place" the artwork and press "tap to place artwork".

Contact us: rixc@rixc.org,  +371 67228478 (office), +371 25358541 (Līva Siliņa)

Partners: The Latvian National Museum of Natural History and National Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe.

Supported by State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, Riga City Council, UNESCO Creative Cities – Media Art City Karlsruhe.