Marc Pettersen’s Here’s Another Story lets spectators view street murals from a different perspective. Specifically, in the world of virtual reality (VR). The project uses a VR phone app to allow viewers to see the public art bloom into animation. Pettersen’s mix of outdoor and virtual events is part of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, as New Haven Independent details:
“I’m always looking at new types of art and technology and seeing how it can work it together,” said Pettersen, a digital artist who works with virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). He went to school for traditional, hand-drawn animation and has moved steadily into computer and VR animation ever since. He’s now a youth mentor at YOUmedia, a maker space at the Hartford Public Library, where he teaches students how to use VR, AR and 3D printing.
As his starting point, Pettersen used the existing public art in Ninth Square — much of it created just this year during the pandemic. Pettersen created his pieces using a VR headset and hand controllers, which allowed him to create, manipulate, and augment the images in the murals in front of him. Virtual reality and the creative tools used to work in it, he said, are inching ever closer to being fully immersive. “If I made a virtual sculpture, I could walk all the way around it.”
Image via New Haven Independent