Augmented Reality - geolocated 3d Statue as political protest art - Holding the Flame

Marica Rigg AR Model

My friend and Artist / Sound Designer, Thor McIntyre-Burnie from Brixtons Aswarm Studios pulled me into this project involving working with a 3d full-figure scan. Thor had scanned Marci Rigg, brother of Sean Rigg who died in suspicious circumstances in police custody at Brixton Police Station in August 2008. Marcia and many others in Seans family have been campaigning tirelessly ever since to seek answers and justice for his tragic death.
It was an honour to work on a project with such grave and sincere aims, both political and artistic. From a practical perspective it was brilliant to be reminded of the workflow involved with taking a noisy and memory heavy 3d scan and refining it through decimation, retopologising, re-uv’ing then texturing and exporting as AR ready folders for both iPhones and Android.
The finished statue was located outside Brixton police station facing and challenging the building (and therefore it’s occupants). It was ‘unveiled’ on the anniversary of Sean’s death, August 21st 2021. The artwork can be viewed by using your phone to scan a QR code located at the square outside the building and then moving the camera over a symbol of the artwork which would then trigger the AR recreation of the model.
The challenges came with getting the model and it’s textures all into a package that was small enough for the AR programs to handle. Essentially smaller than 50mb. Inevitably this results in a loss of detail. However the magic comes in minimising this through used of normal maps.
The potential now is to work on a series of other geolocated statues. Being able to create stuff located in specific places, but technologically encapsulated is a seam of creativity, a pandoras box of a visual format, that has a wealth of potential. I hope to have further opportunities to be involved.