Abgetaucht in Augmented Reality
Can a crisis be a new opportunity? The city of Esslingen am Neckar sets out in search of its future: on four walks through the picturesque old town, digital works by artists, creatives and activists in augmented reality offer answers to the questions “Who do we want to be?” and “What comes after the flood?”
A city in search of its future
The city of Esslingen am Neckar is constantly changing: every three years, the municipal culture festival “Stadt im Fluss” (City in Flux) addresses socially critical impulses in innovative ways. This year it ventured into the digital world for the first time, calling for an app that connects analogue and virtual space.
After winning the pitch, the concept for the digital city walk got underway — in collaboration with Esslingen’s cultural affairs office, artists from Esslingen and the pilots at Pixelcloud.
Four walks to Atlantis
The world is ending, the city is sinking … That’s how the Covid year 2020 may have felt. But can a crisis also be an opportunity? What was unloved is gone, everything redefines itself — that is the idea of “Stadt im Fluss: ATLANTIS”. The flood stands as a metaphor for a society that truly had to go under.
The artworks are projected into the urban space via augmented reality, opening perspectives on dystopian and utopian scenarios — at times critical, at times humorous, demanding or dreamy. In focus: the digitalisation of society as well as sustainability, transport and resource consumption.
Augmented reality on foot
On the PLASTIC|BOTTLE|POST route, Ramon Schmid meets us at the Dicker Turm tower, guides us down into the town in a video walk and muses in verse about how we live in Esslingen. But can it go on like this?
FRESH|AIR|CASTLES confronts us with utopian ideas: couldn’t the Hafenmarkt really become a harbour? Which plants would grow in the Maille park if we gave them free rein? And why not let hundreds of extinct butterflies fly again?
A good outcome is not guaranteed: route 3, the dystopia of QUICK|SAND|CASTLES, tells the opposite story — what happens if we don’t resurface together? An abandoned, deserted city inhabited only by a few rays and the remnants of our well-intentioned ideas.
On route 4, the city’s activists have their say alongside the artists: IDEA|FUEL|MATTER shows how urban space could actually be transformed. Because it doesn’t take a great flood to set change in motion — where butterflies fly, bees soon hum again.
Keep diving
The Stadt im Fluss festival weekend may be over — but thanks to the ATLANTIS mobile app, beautiful Esslingen can still be discovered in a whole new way.
