Apple Brings Augmented Reality Outdoors with New Public Art Initiative
Teaming up with the New Museum and six leading visual artists.






Apple’s customer community program, Today at Apple, is launching a new public art initiative entitled [AR]T. The creative effort aims to expand the capabilities of augmented reality using AR tools found within the tech giant’s devices (ex: iPod Touch). The company teamed up New York City’s New Museum to enlist seven diverse creators to make digitally-enhanced works — all of whom have little-to-no experience of using AR tools.
Participants include Chicago-based artist Nick Cave, Swedish animator Nathalie Djurberg and composer Hans Berg, multimedia artist Cao Fei, as well as conceptual artist Carsten Höller. A bulk of the AR artworks “live as a visual layer on the cityscape and are experienced via a walk with an iPhone in six major cities,” as described by Apple in an official announcement.
Accompanying the public art project is a new program called [AR]T Lab: AR Experiences with digital artist and teacher Sarah Rothberg who is offering free lessons on augmented reality software to beginners in all Apple Stores worldwide. “In this Lab, attendees get hands-on with whimsical objects and sounds created by Rothberg to learn how to code their own AR experiences using Swift Playgrounds,” said Apple.
Learn more about Today art Apple’s [AR]T program here. Elsewhere in art, NYC gallery owner Selenas Mountain recently launched a series of limited edition artist-designed beach towels.