Can Augmented Reality Fix Our Monument Problem? A LACMA Project Replaces Bronze With Silicon
Given the controversial status of so many tangible monuments, augmented reality has obvious advantages over the physical world, appealing to monument builders and cultural institutions alike. A monument in augmented reality is less likely to cause offense than one made of stone or bronze. It doesn’t intrude. It can simply be ignored. ...
Although LACMA’s Monumental Perspectives Initiative is not unique, it represents a worthy attempt to creatively reimagine an important mode of civic engagement in a time of reckoning with deeply flawed precedents. However, the project, now in its second year, also shows the value of monuments that are more obtrusive and durable. ...
...Dozens of ecosystems throughout the United States, many now protected as national parks, were initially preserved through the presidents’ ability to create monuments by decree. More ethereal than computer code, legal code paradoxically gives monuments their fullest physicality.
The foremost value of the Monumental Perspectives Initiative is that it broadens our perspective on what constitutes a monument. Augmented reality is not an improvement over the physical reality of monuments wrought in bronze, but augments the potential of monumentality, much as monuments gained new ground through legal innovation a century ago. ...
See the full story here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathonkeats/2022/04/25/can-augmented-reality-fix-our-monument-problem-a-lacma-project-replaces-bronze-with-silicon/?sh=2407d24326bf
