Gallery Without Walls is a platform for the distribution of artworks across multiple traditional or untraditional spaces around Leicester. We curate exhibitions, collaborate on events and experiment with new ways of displaying art within the city. Our aim is to increase exposure to the arts for the benefit of creatives, venues and the wider community.
Graffio Arts worked with Emily Laurens from Oriel Myrddin Gallery in Carmarthen, Wales, to create Pillars of Society. Pillars of Society (Hoelion Wyth Cymdeithas) is a community project investigating public art in Carmarthen and asking who are our pillars of society? The project was a response to the national (and international) debate around statues, monuments and colonial history. It provided an opportunity to discuss race, equality, Welsh identity and language, and the experience of Wales as coloniser and colonised.
We created a set of souvenir postcards and a project within our augmented reality app showing alternative public art created by first year sculpture students from Carmarthen School of Art as well as a set of humorous animations depicting the students work. The premise of the project is that the alternative public art pieces created by the students should be viewable within the app as an overlay when pointed at the monuments- a discussion point rather than a physical replacement of the current monuments.
The project had to be accessible to anyone with a mobile device. To generate 3D models of the students work required iOS technology thats not currently available to Android users so we had to develop two ways to display the augmented reality. We created six short, animated films depicting the current monument and the proposed student replacement that would play through the screen when pointing at the monument for all devices. For those unable to travel to the monuments in Carmarthen, we set the front of the postcards to also display these animations. The back of the cards presented a map and trail for the monuments throughout Carmarthen and also acted as triggers to release the 3D models for those with iOS devices.
For augmented reality to trigger it requires a visual marker. The app recognises the marker and plays an augmented layer over the top. In this situation the markers would be of monuments that would be lit differently throughout the day. This presented quite a challenge. We took multiple photos of the monuments at different times of the day and created additional versions with low-light, and no cloud cover and high contrast to increase the chances that the app would be able to recognise the monuments. In the end, it worked better than we could have imagined.
The project was created in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement and the physical dismantling of statues in the UK and other parts of the world. The project emerged out of art gallery with an agenda to engage with art and culture in Carmarthen. The project had to be disruptive to a certain extent but tread the fine line that encourages debate rather than polarising opinion. The project was well received and helped Emily and the gallery reach a broad audience when it was picked up by ITV news: Wales This Week: An Uncomfortable Truth. The project was a technical and cultural challenge but in the end, it managed to frame the student’s work without putting them in the firing line- the animated sequences were just too silly to cause offence, we had replaced community monuments without anyone breaking a sweat and Oriel Myrddin Gallery engaged positively in debate with it’s target audience and beyond.
A ground-breaking augmented reality exhibition within the streets of the city. A Window to Reality was a public art project that is turned town centre shop windows into a walk-by augmented reality (AR) gallery. The project demonstrated how new technologies, collaboration and fresh thinking can unlock public spaces as hybrid commercial and creative locations for the betterment of all. Engaging directly with the decline of town centre shopping the project repurposes the windows of disused shops. The windows are turned into portals for viewing art. Through this project the streets of the city become an alternative, curated venue for broader, unexpected exposure to the arts.
Shop windows were covered with an artwork, a portrait and information about the artist. When viewers pointed their mobile device at the artwork, an AR layer allowed them to see the creation of the work with an audio commentary by the artist. Viewers were offered a glimpse of creativity often reserved for a gallery space. The combination of convenience and the exposure to the creative practice of artists sought to flatten the learning curve often associated with engagement and the understanding of the arts.
Six creatives across the arts spectrum were selected for the project. The selection was based on the quality of their work as well as taking into consideration the potential help that extra exposure could add to their developing careers and creative practice. Each of the six creatives were given the opportunity to label themselves, to create a persona for their performance, a way that they felt they should be identified to the public. For the performance each artist wore a distinct white working wardrobe or a white version of their clothes. This was to highlight the alternative reality version of their overlaid selves and to allow focus on their work as they moved in front of it during the creation process. We were pleasantly surprised by how little persuasion it took to get six artists to dress up.
The artists: AGATA TOMASZEK THE TYPOGRAPHER TAYLER FISHER THE MIXED MEDIA ARTIST LIAM PROUDMAN THE DOODLER KRIS TRIGG THE POP ARTIST MONO THE GRAFFITI WRITER JAY CLARK THE SCULPTOR
The city window installations were only be available for a limited time (Winter 2019- Spring 2020).
COLLABORATION PARTNERS Swipe & Tap APP TECHNOLOGY Swipe & Tap worked closely with us to develop the augmented reality app. They brought a technical and creative intelligence to the development of a next-generation AR app which is now freely available for iOS and Android.
James Poole VIDEO James and Johnny from James Poole helped us develop the AR video framework for the project. They have been present at every performance to supply and set-up equipment, advise on the video production, lighting and editing.
Hannah Bodsworth PHOTOGRAPHY Hannah brought her expertise to producing a series of themed but distinct portrait shots that were crucial for establishing the personas of the involved creatives. As the project has developed, Hanna’s studio became the perfect hub for developing the performances.
As the land grab for virtual assets continues, 18 ALIENS was a light hearted experiment in physical and virtual sharing. We gave away 18 sets of aliens on a first come, first served basis at Beta X in Leicester in March 2022. These aliens had no monetary value and comprised of pixels. Each alien was presented as an augmented reality marker on a series of cards. These cards could be shared with friends, family or random strangers, as you see fit, sharing your ownership of the alien. Anyone that owns a card can download the Graffio AR app and point it at the card to summon their alien from a galaxy far away!
The concept of virtual ownership is becoming more and more a part of our daily lives. When viewing a movie, we used to purchase a physical product, like a DVD. Now, it is more common to pay a gatekeeper to allow us to stream content. In this interaction, we no longer own a physical object and our access to the contents may only be for a limited time. Virtual properties in virtual worlds continue to develop in terms of status and real monetary value. As these new frontiers continue to develop should we stand back and ask what we want from virtual worlds? How do we want to interact with each other? What do we value? Is it all about individual or corporate ownership? Remember when we used to share?
To establish the idea that each alien was an individual and worthy of collection, each alien had a backstory created. These were brief introductions with a name and a biography that was part hard sci-fi and part, a tongue-in-cheek riff on popular culture. The aliens had individual sounds, breathed and performed different actions when touched. Some would react if you got within a certain distance from them.
Concept, design + production: Graffio Arts and Institute interns. Pixels: Jonathan Feuillet. 3D objects + animation: Jack Ellis. The brains behind the Beta X project: Seed Creativity. Funding: LCB. Beta X project manager: Ady Alexander.
https://decentered.co.uk/beta-x-podcast-002-launching-the-hub/
https://x.com/betaxleicester?lang=en-GB
https://www.facebook.com/BETAXCommunity/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CnXHFzhMFWl/?hl=zh-cn
https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/efforts-make-leicesters-high-streets-6670968
Graffio Arts delivered the REAL incubation programme at Phoenix Arts in Leicester. REAL Incubation ran from April 2022 to May 2023 with 25 film makers and digital artists starting 25 new businesses. The programme included free access to a large co-working space, access to industry standard production facilities, business start-up training to establish and grow each new business, inspiration from established documentary and digital art practitioners, mentoring, coaching, support to introduce their film, art or service to the market and help from experienced professionals to work on a passion project, with a focus on documentary or digital arts. The and concluded with the REAL Film Festival in April 2023
The course was led by Steve and Guy, Directors at Institute and Graffio Arts and included contributions from other industry guests. The initiative was coordinated by Nick and Julia Hamer.
Our goals for the program were to increase the creative’s understanding of the relationship between personal creative goals and viable commercial opportunities. Now, at the end of the programme, the delegates are taking their first informed first steps into industry. As part of the programme, delegates were supported to propose and work on a self-directed ‘passion project’, to develop their portfolio. The key objective of the programme is for the delegates to develop their ability to express their ideas creatively and to find commercial vehicles for this expression.
If you lived with in the town of Loughborough during the Covid -19 lockdown, you may have been one of 15,000 local residencies that received an augmented reality exhibition through your letterbox from The Culture Delivery Service. You’re welcome. Building on a successful track record of using augmented reality (AR) art to engage new audiences, Graffio Arts have now developed the CDS. The artworks were created by four outstanding Leicestershire based artists, who each took a unique approach to the use of AR to add an animated digital element to their work, allowing them to develop their practice and take their creativity to new audiences.
This was a progressive, consumer-friendly model ensuring that audiences still received high-quality culture in innovative ways, regardless of the global pandemic while being restricted to their homes. A print arrived through the door. The free prints included instructions to download a free smartphone app, which enabled them to view an AR experience of the chosen Artist’s work via their device when pointed at the print. We then offered the chance to go the next step. We created a website with an online store where the public could purchase an AR-enabled product from each artist, providing a richer experience for the audience and supporting the artists with a new income stream at that critical time.
The CDS provided us with the opportunity to pilot a new way of engaging audiences and reach potential future creatives. We posted free AR artist’s prints to 17,484 households in the LE11 1, 2 and 3 postcodes, which are located in and around Loughborough. This adds up to a total audience base of over 30,000 people. The aim of the project was to reach everyone living in those areas, irrespective of their social, cultural or economic context.
The artists: Miriam Bean (FACEBOOK INSTAGRAM SOUNDCLOUD VIMEO) and collaborator Josh Semans (SPOTIFY TWITTER FACEBOOK INSTAGRAM EMAIL), Alison Carpenter-Hughes (WEBSITE FACEBOOK INSTAGRAM LINKEDIN), Thierry Miquel (FACEBOOK INSTAGRAM).
Concept, design and production: Graffio Arts. Producer: Ben Fredricks. Funding: Arts Council England.
Bringing the Frost to Frost Fair
ART EVENTCULTUREEVENTSLOUGHBOROUGHTHE LABVIDEOSOLUTIONSARTS & CULTURETECHNOLOGYART
Graffio Arts provided the app and augmented reality experiences for Bankside’s Frostfair. Working with Phil Dawson (This Must Be The Place) and working in Loughborough and London, we had to design new ways to make the Fairs art trail come to life.
A MULTI-MEDIA TRAIL OF STREET ART MURALS, DIGITAL ART INSTALLATIONS AND EVENTS
This winter, Bankside celebrated one of the most extraordinary events in London’s history – the Frost Fair. From circa 1605 to 1814, the surface of the River Thames froze over 24 times, bringing all trade on the water to a standstill. So the people of Bankside took to the ice, creating ‘Frost Fairs’, with a sensational cornucopia of markets, amusement, food, drink, games, pubs, shops, entertainment and general revelry!
Inspired by the area’s rich heritage and lively characters, Bankside has reinvented the Frost Fair for the 21st century. You could immerse yourself in innovative augmented reality installations, follow street art trails, feast on special Frost Fair themed food and drink and enjoy inspired workshops.
NAVIGATING THE ART TRAIL
Visitors to the Frost Fair could pick up printed maps with the locations of all the AR work on display. A download version was also available on the website with simple instructions to find and download the AR app. At each location the public had to understand what they could do and short explainers were provided on posters and floor stickers.
AUGMENTED REALITY
Our goal was to increase the interaction available to the public at each point along the trail. This was accomplished in a variety of ways. The augmented reality aspects of the project could be broadly broken down into video and 3D. Looking through the AR app and while the viewer pointed at the right spot would reveal video playing within the space or pop up a 3D model that could be placed wherever the viewer decided. There was a film screening on one wall, graffiti work emerging from other wall sand people placing a 10ft high elephant outside of Tate Modern!
ART, DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY
We designed the AR experiences but also supplied the technology for the project. The Graffio Arts AR app is available in iOS and Android versions and can be used as the basis for a brand’s own app. In this case, Bankside were happy to have Frost Fair as one of a variety of projects available on the app.
GATHERING THE ARTISTS
Lawless Studio brought a host of creatives to the project including film makers, graffiti artists and creative kids. You can find out about all of them here: Graffio Arts, Jason Slabber, Timba Smits, 3D Joe & Max & Frost Fair, Dreph, Everfresh, Peachzz, Mr Cenz, Julia Fullerton-Batten, Richard Kindersley, Nomad Clan, Alice Clarke and Charles Dickens Primary School
AR EXPERIENCES: JASON SLABER
Jason created an incredible video that pieced together frames of animation generated by ai. This piece played as augmented reality from a poster and was also used as a projection at the end of a shopping arcade.
AR EXPERIENCES: NOMAD CLAN
Nomad Clan’s paintings were carefully animated in a quirky style that enhanced their incredible work. The AR elements could be experienced by the viewer in front of each of their pieces.
AR EXPERIENCES: JULIA FULLERTON-BATTEN
Julia’s incredible film depicting an historic Frost Faire was projected at large scale onto a wall with AR.
AR EXPERIENCES: MR CENZ
Mr Cenz’s mural was above street level and animated in AR. The iOS version featured elements of the work emerging out of the mural onto the surrounding roof.
AR EXPERIENCES: PEACHZZ
Each piece of Peachzz’s work featured animated elements that brought each scene to life.
AR EXPERIENCES: GRAFFIO ARTS
We were invited to produce our own piece of work that was viewable beside the river Thames. You can out more here.
THE LAUNCH
The project had many components and really was a race against time. We like to extend a big thank-you to all those involved for working long hours, travelling to meet up to discuss the project and pulling results out of the bag. This project highlights the benefits of different agencies and creatives working together and shows what you can accomplish when you mix for the use of art, design and technology.
AR AND YOU
Are you interested in the ways that augmented reality could bring your event to life? Tell us about your ideas!
solutionsexperiencestechnologydesignaugmented realityAReventsart trailscultureGraffio AR Appcollaboration
We worked with local agency Arch Creative to bring augmented reality (AR) to a new vacant units project. Street Stories is designed to improve the appearance of empty shops in the city centre and turn them into points of interest.
BID Leicester supported local agency Arch Creative to deliver a new vacant units project. Working with ten local artists spanning a range of styles and mediums, Street Stories celebrates the innovative achievements of pioneering people from Leicester, and also explores some powerful themes including human rights, the environment, consumerism and identity.
Graffio arts worked with Arch to bring augmented reality technology to the project. We also provided a framework solution that enables Street Stories to go to other towns and cities, all within one, new app. The project enabled you to follow the trail of artworks around the city and bring them to life with multi-sensory animations triggered by our free smartphone app.
Following the success of the Leicester project, Arch have now taken Street Stories to various UK cities.
The War Widows’ Quilt is a beautiful and moving piece of collaborative art that relays the realities of war widowhood in Britain, past and present. We were asked to turn it into a book. The book tells the moving stories that lie behind the squares of the War Widows’ Quilt, a collaborative piece of art made by more than 90 war widows.
Graffio Arts were honoured to be approached to design a book to document the War Widows’s quilt. The quilt, made in collaboration with arts company arthur+martha, is part of the War Widows’ Stories project, led by Dr Nadine Muller (Senior Lecturer in English Literature & Cultural History, Liverpool John Moores University) and the War Widows’ Association of Great Britain (WWA).
Part of the War Widows’ Stories project, led by LJMU’s Dr Nadine Muller (Reader in Women’s & Gender Studies) in collaboration with the War Widows’ Association of Great Britain, the War Widows’ Quilt is a beautiful and challenging piece of art that communicates the realities of war widowhood in the UK through quilting and poetry.
Released for Remembrance Sunday, allows people to discover the quilt and the stories that lie behind each of its squares, as well as the creative and research work that inspired this stunning piece of textile art.
Nadine said: “I’m delighted that we’ve been able to make a digital version of the book available for free as we mark Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday.
“The War Widows’ Quilt has provided a creative, therapeutic and immensely impactful way for the women to tell their life stories, and to process and share their love, loss and grief, as well as the social and economic challenges they have faced.
“The restrictions of the COVID pandemic have meant that we’ve not been able to exhibit the quilt since its display at the Queen’s House, Greenwich, in 2019. I’m so pleased that people can now discover the quilt and the stories behind it through this beautiful new edition of the exhibition book.
“The experiences so many women have shared through the War Widows’ Stories project are an incredibly important part of the history of war and conflict that must not be forgotten, and we have a duty to continue to hear and learn from all those affected and left behind by conflicts around the world to understand the real cost of war.”
The War Widows’ Quilt is a beautiful and moving piece of collaborative art that relays the realities of war widowhood in Britain, past and present. Made from second-hand armed forces shirts by over a hundred war widows and their families, its squares tell stories of love, loss and grief that connect women across generations, from the Second World War to the Falklands, Iraq, and peacetime.
In this event, we explore the power of creativity at the centre of the War Widows’ Stories project, asking how the meditative process of stitching and sewing can offer an outlet for the memories of those we have loved.
CREDITS
The War Widows’ Quilt was edited by Lois Blackburn (Lead Artist), Philip Davenport (Lead Writer), Nadine Muller (Project Lead), and designed by Graffio Arts.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE WAR WIDOW’S QUILT
THE BRITISH ACADEMY
Stitching Remembrance: The War Widows’ Quilt
In this event, we explore the power of creativity at the centre of the War Widows’ Stories project, asking how the meditative process of stitching and sewing can offer an outlet for the memories of those we have loved.
The British Academy Summer Showcase ‘21
Speakers:
Lois Blackburn, artist, arthur+martha
Dr Nadine Muller, Senior Lecturer in English Literature & Cultural History, Liverpool John Moores University
Mary Moreland MBE, War Widow and former Chair of the War Widows' Association
LIVERPOOL JOHN MOORES UNIVERSITY
New book reveals lives, loves and losses behind War Widows’ Quilt
WAR WIDOWS’ STORIES
VIEWING THE BOOK
You can download a digital version of the book from the project’s website at www.warwidowsstories.org.uk or via this direct link.
Institute's Flowmondo hosted it's first Hackathon at Loughborough College, engaging T-level students with some real-world problem solving. Flowmondo's team explained basic principles of low code systems and introduced the students to some easy-to-use tools. The students were broken into teams and went through to complete a sample project surprisingly easily. At lunch time and in the spirit of coding culture, a huge stack of pizza was devoured. In the afternoon, the student teams pitched their own projects based on the mornings discoveries. At the end, the teams showed off their work and prizes were given out for the most ambitious and promising results.
The Hackathon was a day to show the students some examples of real-world code applications and working practices.
Promising students were offered internships at Institute and have gone on to full employment with Flowmondo. Institute continues to engage with local college and universities as we seek to support students in the transition from education to industry.
This change has been in part powered by the groundswell in the number of quality Independent game studios and the availability of new, powerful and affordable software. When this kind of software becomes available, it doesn’t take much time for creatives to develop an understanding of this new media and imagine new ways to solve old problems. This often includes: how do I express myself?
Ama Dogbe is a young British-Ghanaian artist whose practice sits within digital realms. She has produced experimental animation of various kinds and is currently developing video games using a variety of self-taught digital mediums. The work on show at Institute was created with Unity. Institute presented two new game demos by Ama: Alien Invasion - No. 1607221 and Alien Invasion - Compartmentalising, as part of an audio-video installation. In Alien Invasion - No. 16072216, figures descend upon a garden-like world, and players follow paths to uncover talismans, relics and icons.
Using physical and digital repetition through photogrammetry (the process of creating 3D digital outcomes from photographs), Ama created a web of symbols that were both strange and familiar. The project was commissioned by MPND and funded by Arts Council England.
This event ran as part of Loughborough Lates, a free event open to the general public. The games ran on Mac computers and through Institutes exhibition screens. They were playable with PS4 controllers. It was intriguing to see children and adults engage with art in ways that they probably never have before.
The controllers would be familiar to some as would some of the game-like mechanics of navigation but the visual language and the use of space and the meaning of symbols were unique and had to be de-cyphered by the user.
There is much that we have learnt over the last few decades from digital gaming. We have created new worlds and developed communities as we populated them with our digital selves. We have negotiated time and money in favour of rewards and we have traded assets that resulted from our digital endeavours. We have become addicted and also frustrated- we have expressed the joy and anger of the physical world in virtual worlds. We’ve made friends and enemies. We’ve built clans, communities and businesses. We’ve stolen, we’ve conned, we’ve married, we’ve grieved. We’ve changed race and gender (often for a fee). We’ve planted crops and harvested them. We’ve built our own houses, developed new mythologies and made friends with people across continents.
As we move forward with VR, AR and the eventual mix of both, it is important that we capitalise on the learnings from gaming- the good and the bad so that we might capture the joy and empowerment that gaming can foster. It is also important that artists are equipped with the software and skills of new media technology as it emerges so that inquisitive, potentially contrarian voices become part of the discourse that develops our digital futures.
You will be able to see an online version of the project between 3rd November 2023 - 27th January 2024. The game is accompanied by a soundtrack of electronic, ambient and contemporary hip-hop by musician Louis Jack. The video game will be available to play via the Modern Painters, New Decorators website.
