The Arts Dot Karlskrona

A five-day event with workshops, a public seminar, art exhibitions and a cultural tour with the theme “Recovering with art, nature and virtual reality”.

I participated in this project as an exhibitions coordinator, graphic designer, and exhibitor. Art exhibitions were organised in physical and digital formats. Two galleries were our venues for exhibitions and meetings: Konstnären & Pinaulen Björkholmsplan in the centre and Skärva Herrgård outside the city. Two more places hosted us for the workshop and a public seminar: Blue Science Park on Campus Gräsvik and Hyper Island on Stumholmen.

I especially appreciate my collaboration with a digital studio 5dVR from Egypt, Maged and his team (http://www.5d-vr.com/). It was a part of our event program to participate in a workshop where artists and tech companies matched. My group of three artists and the digital studio communicated remotely in Karlskrona, Sweden, and two more artists in Cairo as the 5dVR-team. After short presentations, I shared my interests in AR (augmented reality). I work mainly with digital and analogue art, combining those two processes. Still, my work was never overlaid with a layer of digital content using augmented reality platforms to create a new product. We, artists, shared thoughts and wishes to take our 2d-art to another level and create something exciting together. All the artists in my group were lucky to get help from a few developers from the studio 5dVR, which exceeded expectations. 

One of the outcomes was a filter created from my artwork, the acrylic painting “So Free As A Fish In The Sea” which came to life with the help of Augmented Reality. We could use a filter via Instagram account, and it was such fun to experience it! The filter could also be used via other social media (Facebook, Snapchat), and it was a test version, a prototype not approved by Instagram yet. Our pictures of analogue 2d artworks came to life. Motives jumped out of one picture, accompanied by music and moved to another picture. Analogue art merged with technology to go into the painting and live its motive.

A creative agency Stettiner from Poland launched an application that makes it possible to experience artworks, whether you are, in Sweden or Hong Kong, at home or walking in a park. Artworks of 14 international artists who participated in The Arts Dot 2021 show up via the application theartsdot on your mobile phone, including my works.