20.1.2021 klo 10:25
ARTI ft. The Oulu Museum of Art
Maybe you have already seen it, maybe you wondered what it was. The three electrical boxes with the paintings on them in the city centre are part of a collaboration between ARTI and the Oulu Museum of Art. ARTI is a team that consists of four members: Veera Rahtula (24), artist and communication manager, Joni Tyni (31), artist and Art Director, Marjaleena Pihlflyckt (22), AR expert and animator and Janneke de Wit (20), artist and project manager. We create art combined with AR technology. Together with the Oulu Museum of Art we started our first project. We documented our whole process for you. Curious? Read about it down here!
A project always starts with a good idea. We started with brainstorming, throwing everything we had on our mind on the table and seeing if we had things in common with each other. Quickly we decided we wanted to make art. After doing some research we came across artists who painted electrical boxes in Helsinki. That hasn’t been done in Oulu yet, so we thought painting three boxes would be a great idea for our project. But to make our project even better we came up with the idea to use AR technology (Augmented Reality (AR), a way to experience computer made elements in the real world) to give the artworks an extra dimension.
This is where ARTI originated. A team that creates art and combines street art/graffiti with AR.
The first step that had to be taken was getting permission to paint the three electrical boxes. Which immediately proved to be a challenge, perhaps the hardest one according to Veera. “No one has contacted us yet from the city, so we have to wait for a response.”
Meanwhile we can’t just sit around and do nothing. We started with sketching. The three artists in our team, Veera, Joni and Janneke, made some sketches to show at our first meeting with The Oulu Museum of Art. Our AR animator, Marjaleena, made AR animations to show the museum what is possible for the AR.
The first meeting went very well. We explained our vision and the Oulu Museum of Art was excited to do a collaboration with us. Working together with the museum is a great opportunity for us. “It is really exciting to work together with a well-known museum in Finland,” Marjaleena says. The most important reason why we wanted to do a collaboration with the museum is to create art and share it with people. We want to inspire people and get them interested in art more. “It’s fantastic to have support to create art from such an important institute here in Oulu”, Veera explains, “because it gives us good possibilities to reach our aim.”
In the second meeting we decided to make our own paintings inspired by artworks of the Oulu Museum of Art. We all chose our favourite ones. Veera chose ‘American Cocker Spaniel’ by Emma Ainala, Joni chose ‘Bird Girl’ by Pentti Junno and Janneke was inspired by ‘Prison Gate’ by Eeli Aalto.
Now the designing of our painting started. With our art we wanted to bring a message to the people that would see it. So we made sketches and we all thought of a message behind the painting. But one thing we were still waiting for was the permission of the City of Oulu to use the electrical boxes. “Even though we don’t have the permission yet, we still keep on planning and working on our sketches,” Joni says.
While the artists worked on their ideas for the paintings, Marjaleena started with the AR designing. She has been testing the AR program Zappar since the beginning of our project. “I have got to know how to use this program and what kind of AR we could do, now that I know all the possibilities. I have already started with designing the AR for the paintings we want to do,” Marjaleena explains.
We decided we all wanted 3D animations for the three paintings. So Marjaleena started with modelling the 3D objects.
And then we received the good news: After emailing and calling back and forth with Oulun Energia and the City of Oulu, we finally got the permissions for the electrical boxes! We were all so happy. “Everything can finally happen. We are so excited that we can paint the electrical boxes now,” Janneke says. “But the weather is getting colder and colder, so we want to paint as fast as possible.”
By: Janneke de Wit and the ARTI team