How can augmented artworks act as site-specific interventions, enabling us to reclaim erased narratives and prototype futures in an age of uncertainty? In this workshop facilitated by artist Alice Yuan Zhang, we will explore possibilities and caveats for using AR technology to engage the public in immersive dialogue about the politics of a place. Zhang will draw from her project Requiem for Lost Plants (2020), an immersive online and site-specific multimedia experience honoring five plant elders across a fraught landscape of urban Los Angeles, where ecological communities have faced drastic disruption since colonization. Following an initial artist talk and discussion, we will develop a basic understanding of the technical working process and get hands-on with creating our own AR work. No prior experience with AR or 3D software is necessary, though image editing skills, a steady computer and smartphone will be useful in practice.

This workshop is FREE thanks to generous support from the Iowa Arts Council.

It is presented in collaboration with the Iowa City Public Library — registration is through their website, and the workshop will be held via Zoom.

workshop is FULL!

About the artist:
Alice Yuan Zhang 张元 is an artist, educator, and first-generation Chinese-American immigrant living on Tongva, Chumash, Kizh land (Los Angeles). Her practice explores socioecological entanglement through grassroots interactive projects across mixed reality, browsers, networks, and other digital spaces, as well as somatic workshops and community exchanges. Zhang co-founded virtual care lab, an open experiment in remote togetherness and mutual governance. She is also a 2020-21 CultureHub resident artist, involved member of NAVEL Los Angeles, and adjunct professor of media design at Sarah Lawrence College.