Mural Artists Use Augmented Reality To Highlight Effects Of Climate Change

The power of graffiti and street art has been used by generations of young people in order to make a name for themselves or make a powerful statement on the state of society. But isn’t paint on a wall a bit old hat? Exactly, we need some modern technology to spruce things up, and that’s way augmented reality (AR) is being used in the latest street art pieces and murals to bring attention to a global issue that threatens us all; climate change.

Now, a new mural is going up near the City of Miami Cemetary which can be viewed through your smartphone in order to see the possible side effects of climate change. Curbed Miami reports that the mural was painted live in front of a small audience of gatherers and passers-by.

The company who put the mural in place, Before It’s Too Late, are using art, virtual reality (VR), simulations and science in order to make a statement about climate change. They’re a group founded by MIT graduate students who want to make people more aware of the dangers of climate change and what they can do to prevent it. You can learn more about them on their website.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen street art and graffiti cross paths. In the AR app WallaMe you can leave AR art and messages on any wall space virtually, allowing other app users to view it when they visit the same space.

The AR graffiti app Gif-iti also altered real graffiti, by using special patterns which enable the phone to make the images pules and move like a real life gif.

Of course, if you want to get creative in the virtual world there are also options like Kingspray Graffiti, which can immerse you in a digital world that you can decorate and design at will.

It’s fascinating that street art has moved towards AR technology like this, but it makes sense. It’s natural though, as so many traditional art forms are moving further into the digital space. As more things like graffiti and street art make the jump to AR and VR, you’ll read about it on VRFocus.

Graffiti GIFs Become Real with the Gif-iti App

Graffiti is that homely artwork you’ll find scrawled across the bus timetable at your local bus stop, describing your mother in various illicit ways. Yes, the above might be your experience with graffiti, perhaps the most aimless method of insult, like subtweeting someone who doesn’t know what the internet is. But in fact, graffiti isn’t all bad, some of it is incredible, moving, and even… Well, literally moving.

Enter Gif-iti, the app that’ll literally bring street art and wall murals to life. INSA is the British artist, now world-renowned, who wants to bring street art to life – literally. By combining his new app, Gif-iti, with some very carefully planned artwork and augmented reality (AR), you can bring street art to life, as the app recognises and animates the art.

Now, this won’t work with the aforementioned “art” you’ll find at your local bus stop – INSA needs to design the art himself and animate it accordingly within his app before it’s updated. This does make one thing awkward however, as not everyone can easily travel to see INSA’s artwork…

Well luckily you can enjoy the experience at home too. All you need to do is download INSA’s Gif-iti app on the App Store, and visit his website here. Use the phone’s app and point your camera at INSA’s artwork, and they should spring to life.

If you’d like to see INSA’s art for yourself, you can find it all over the world, and he just might pop up at an art event or festival near you.

For all of the latest on futuristic artwork using augmented reality, stay on VRFocus.

‘Kingspray Graffiti’ Review: Bombing Walls With Virtual Spray Paint

‘Kingspray Graffiti’ Review: Bombing Walls With Virtual Spray Paint

The paint drips from the wall, bleeding the blue-green from the eyeballs into the pale, tan skin of Super Saiyan Goku. At least, that’s what I tell myself I’m spray painting on this brick wall, even though it looks more like a smiling potato with yellow grass on top of its head. I’m not much of an artist, but I can recognize the power of a piece of software when it’s there.

Kingspray Graffiti has been around for a while, originally as a Vive title, and now as a timed-exclusive on the Oculus Rift with Touch. What we have here is a full suite of features for painting graffiti art work on walls, multiplayer support, sharing options, and more it’s a fantastic tool that enables and promotes a very specific and striking form of art.

Before you clicked on this review, you probably already had a pretty good idea of whether or not this is for you. Kingspray Graffiti sets out to do one thing and one thing only: simulate the experience of spray painting stuff. You can pick different paint cans, nozzles, locations, and lighting to tag walls either on your own or with friends. Take pictures, share them, record 360-degree videos inside the game of your work, and listen to preset music stations, or your own tracks, while doing so.

Many people don’t realize that King Spray was actually an Xbox 360 indie game released around six years ago. This latest iteration, Kingspray Graffiti, takes the concept and expands on it in every way, as well as adding your hands into the experience. That’s the real game changer here.

Similar to other art-enabling VR apps like Tilt Brush, Medium, Quill, and others, there is no game in Kingspray. There aren’t missions, or objectives, or anything ‘to do’ in the traditional sense other than what you decide to do. Pick a location, decide what you want to make, and go make it.

In this way it’s a freeing experience that enables you to make and do whatever you’d like, but it’s also a bit overwhelming for people that enjoy having more precise instructions and directions. If you’re looking for something to hold your hand and tell you exactly what to do and how to do it, this isn’t the app for you.

For the intrepid street artist however, you have the power to make some truly incredible stuff. There are dozens of colors and shades to pick from with an intuitive interface. One of my favorite parts of the app is the clever in-game representation of a smartphone in your left hand. You can choose menu options, change the station on the jukebox, take photos of your creations, and more. Small touches like this are what really put experiences over the top in VR.

The social aspects of Kingspray are great as well, as you can co-exist in the same environment with up to four other other wall bombers in real-time. Collaborating on large wall art is exhilarating and the simple teleportation movement makes it easy to access far-reaching areas of a canvas, as opposed to physically trying to move around a building in real life.

Final Recommendation: Only For Fans of Street Art

Kingspray Graffiti takes a simple premise and expands it out to the point that it offers all of the features you’d ever want — and plenty that you probably didn’t know you wanted. It feels like the real thing, but it also lets you do so much more than what the typical artist could ever do in real life. It’s a creatively freeing, flexible, and engaging experience that’s equal parts artistic expression and social engagement. If you’re dying to try this, then you probably won’t be disappointed. But if you’re just passively curious about art’s applications in VR, then maybe spend time checking out Quill for drawing or Medium for sculpting first — they’re both free, whereas Kingspray is not.

You can download Kingspray Graffiti for Oculus Rift with Touch via the Oculus Home Store for $14.99.

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