Laure + Dick + Neo’s ‘Plaza Desventura’ began as an augmented reality (AR) work relating to specific sites in Toronto & Mexico City. It was developed through a residency at Digital Arts Resource Centre for the online exhibit ‘tendercircuits.ca’.

The project re-animates derelict urban infrastructure, repurposing two artifacts in the virtual world: Toronto’s Cherry Street bridge-control building becomes a bobbing render of a mock condo unit in an unbuilt high-rise; the waterless fountain trapped in a cloverleaf of Mexico City’s elevated ring road becomes a clunky helicopter.

Meant to be viewed from atop footbridges (whose own framework is graphically enhanced through colour-coded AR filters relating to the two animations), the project calls up the contemporary reality of anonymized persons self-segregating in the same (non-)place. In initial research, Laure + Dick + Neo photographed the sites extensively and then made schematic drawings, sculptural pieces and posters with QR codes linked to an Instagram site—all meant to grant easier access to the AR and graft it back into its complex surroundings. All this will be on display in this studio exhibition.