Using augmented reality to tell stories about ‘meeting culture’ in St Thomas – Newsroom | University of St. Thomas

In the wizarding world of Harry Potter, readers are delighted to see the walls of Hogwarts buildings covered in magical portraits. That technique requires spells and incantations and things that cannot be replicated in the real world (Harry Potter is, after all, fiction!).

As we prepare for our Encounter Culture exhibition at the O’Shaughnessy Educational Center Department of Art History Gallery at the University of St. Thomas on September 12 at 5 p.m., we used real-world techniques instead of magic to bring the paintings together. Life. Using augmented reality software with photos of community members, we created an exhibit where visitors could bring portraits of students, faculty, and staff to life.

University President Rob Wisher says that with a culture of encounter, “we observe, we listen, we encourage, and we are with every person we encounter.” This is best demonstrated when “we reject a transactional approach to engaging those around us and instead aim to build meaningful relationships.”

While we didn’t know what they would say as they walked through the studio doors for our shoot, we heard and captured many beautiful and poignant stories from community members about the times they saw, heard, encouraged, and felt connected to them. Professors, advisors, colleagues, coaches, and peers on campus.

In more than 20 portraits, we hear the story of St. Thomas football quarterback Brandon Smith, who he says he saw when coach Glenn Caruso invited him to share his ambitious career dreams with those attending that day’s game. And Patty Pontemayor, a sophomore at Dougherty Family College, felt heard when her peers at DFC helped her through specific struggles. American Culture and Diversity and Associate Professor of English Dr. David Todd Lawrence shares his personal story of how the community rallied to his aid after a medical emergency.

The digital storytelling technique we developed at St. Thomas was inspired by the work of Will Wilson, a contemporary Tiné/Navajo artist who calls Talking Tintypes. Visitors to his installations are encouraged to download the Talking Tintypes app and point their phones at large-scale, sepia-toned portraits of tribal members that appear to be captured in the 1900s. The act of using personal smartphones to get the story behind the portraits creates a greater connection to the art and the stories being told.

Although the three of us are part of the ITS Academic Technology and Innovation Team, this exhibit is the result of time spent as faculty and staff innovation partners, and we want to see this technique adapted to other digital storytelling projects. Our hope is to use this same technique to increase campus tours and more in the coming year.

The St. Thomas Culture of Encounter exhibit will be on display through October 18 in the Art History Gallery in the O’Shaughnessy Education Center on the first floor next to the lobby. To hear the portraits come to life, visitors should bring their smartphone (and some earbuds or headphones) and download the Artviv app before stopping by the exhibit.

This post was written by three faculty and staff innovation partners: Lisa Burke, Senior Director, STELAR; Peter Monahan, instructional media producer; and Eric Torno, Associate Director, Research Computing and Emerging Technologies. The Fellows Program seeks to engage the university community in placing St. Thomas at the forefront of innovation. This year’s inaugural joint recipients were selected from a wide variety of exceptional proposals received from across the organization.