This augmented reality experience is accessible to anyone with a smartphone (Android or iOS). Using a target image, the application allows users to see poetic haiku sounds and 360° spatialised visuals, inspired by the poetic and plastic works of Belgian artist Pol Bury, appear in their environment.
La Société i Matériel: Marc Veyrat - design / images, Gaëtan Le Coarer / design & images, Jonathan Juste: design / programming, Paradise Now - poetic & sound creation.
In April 2023, an augmented reality experience called ] P P P [, short for Pol Pipoling Project, was developed in the city of La Louvière to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Pol Bury—a Belgian surrealist and kinetic artist originally from La Louvière. This project was designed by Société i Matériel, with the participation of Transcultures.
Using a smartphone, users can scan target images to activate an augmented reality application. Once the app is launched, the user sees multiple 3D models appear on their screen, drawing from the graphic vocabulary of Pol Bury. Spheres, flowers, jewelry, and distorting mirrors coexist in a universe called JARDIN. These 3D models appear and disappear as the user moves around with their smartphone in hand. By tapping on the models on screen, users transform them into fragments of poems floating on the display. These fragments can then be manipulated in augmented reality by touching the screen—for example, rotating or pushing them away. The fragments reconstruct a cut-up poem, shaped within the user’s own spatial experience—framed and located within the city. The poem thus marks a space between the screen and the urban landscape. It acts as a mnemonic agent within the immersive experience.
A descent into a second world is possible within the AR application. By touching an object in the JARDIN, or by scanning a second target image, the user enters the MINE. While the JARDIN composes a poetic world between the device and the territory, the MINE is a world shaped or affected by the JARDIN. This MINE is therefore a deeper world, in the shadow of the JARDIN. In this second world, the user can perceive, above and at a distance, a glimpse of the JARDIN. As the user moves through the MINE, they interact with layered images taken from within the JARDIN. Afterwards, the user can return to the first world.
