Interactive Antarctica: a museum installation based on an augmented reality system

Abstract

This paper considers the research work behind an interactive installation based on an Augmented Reality System (ARS). The installation will be a museum display, and will enable the participant to gesturally interact with data (digital image and sound) from the Antarctic. The ARS will allow a technological exploration of documentary and will considerably develop the contemporary status and understanding of the documentary genre in installation art. In this paper, we argue that the augmented reality installation presents a new mode of documentary experience, thus transforming the genre into a vastly new and complex ensemble. The fact that genre has always been fluid and mutable is widely understood; this paper extends that knowledge by showing the transformative possibilities when an ARS is adopted as the presentation vehicle.