Agora

Inspiration

We believe that public art has the power to express the visions of local citizens and artists and to re-engage the community through public spaces. In the virtual space, members of the community don't need rely on corporate sponsorships to create and install their art. Agora empowers individuals in the community to express what they want to express and communicate what they want to communicate.

What it does

Agora uses AR to allow users to create 3D art, and virtually install their pieces at public spaces around their current area. Then, members of the community can use the heat-map function to see the density of Agora art pieces in any area in the world. As they move around their current location, they use the art viewer in the mobile app to discover user-submitted artworks. Users can also review artworks submitted by their fellow citizens and upvote/downvote. When viewing art, users can choose to see all user-submitted work, top 5 submitted works, only their own works, and can also use the timeline function to see how users have installed and deleted works over time.

How we built it

Our starting point was a Google Labs ARCore test project called “Just a Line." From there we extended into our existing product adding capabilities that encourage social collaboration and permanent record of the art pieces.

Challenges we ran into

We didn’t have previous experience with ARCore, and we ran into problems setting up cloud anchors.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were able to create persistent AR art

What we learned

Many different technical skills and how to communicate among people from different backgrounds and cultures

What's next for Agora

Extend its features like social elements and go public