Seeing the Invisible – Augmented Reality Art at the Adelaide Botanic Garden
Review by Claire Davill
You won’t be concerned about screen time when the kids visit the Adelaide Botanic Garden – because there’s a whole hidden art exhibition waiting to be discovered via Augmented Reality (AR).
Seeing the Invisible is a FREE international exhibition and the Adelaide Botanic Garden is the only place in Australia that you can witness the AR art. Download the Seeing the Invisible App (available on iOS and Android) on your phone or tablet, and head to the Schomburgk Pavilion to follow the trail of 13 art installations around the garden.
At each location, look for the yellow sign, allow your phone/tablet’s GPS to settle and launch the artwork. You can face any direction you choose to “place” the artwork, and then interact with it. The kids will love this – they’ll be walking through virtual tunnels and through portals to other worlds, walking through a giant bubble and through an exploding flower arrangement.
Many of the pieces have music or audio added, and many move and change as you view them. You can take photos within the app, which create fabulous photo opportunities of the interaction with each piece.
Because the artwork is virtual, there’s minimal physical impact to the garden and it’s a wonderful intersection of nature and technology.
Things to consider:
- The app is large and requires a lot of phone memory. Download it before you go, and be aware it might not work well on older phones. We managed to get it to work on an old iPhone 7, although it drained the battery in just under 2 hours of use. We also used an iPhone 13 with much better battery results.
- Bring a powerbank if you have concerns about battery life!
- Familiarise yourself with the app before you start. There’s a short tutorial included in the app when you open it for the first time.
- Allow some time for your phone or tablet’s GPS to settle at each location, as the app requires you to be in exactly the “right spot” to launch each artwork. You can see your location and direction you’re facing relative to the art piece on a map within the app.
- Try to face in a direction that you can then move back from when “placing” the artwork, as sometimes they appear quite close and you’ll need to move back to properly view the whole artwork.
- Allow at least an hour to walk the trail and interact with all the art pieces.
- If you have a tablet, bring it – the larger screen will make it easier to view the art.
The exhibition runs until 30 September 2023 and is available whenever the the Adelaide Botanic Garden is open.
DISCOVER MORE ABOUT ADELAIDE BOTANIC GARDEN
For more information and all enquiries please visit the Botanic Gardens website.
What: Seeing the Invisible AR Art Exhibition
When: Until 30 September 2023 (during garden open hours)
Where: Adelaide Botanic Garden, starting at the Schomburgk Pavilion
Who: Everyone
At Play & Go Adelaide we make every effort to provide accurate information to the best of our knowledge at the time of publication. We recommend confirming times, dates and details directly before making any plans as details may be subject to change.
Image Source: photos by Play & Go Adelaide
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