The project is based on the observation that art projects in public space are often visible only for a limited period of time, depending on the nature of the medium. Their documentation may remain fragmentary or dispersed, making it difficult to reconstruct these works retrospectively in relation to their original sites. As a result, not only do individual works risk being forgotten more quickly, but the city itself also remains only partially legible as a public space of art. AR-A responds to this challenge by proposing the concept of a spatial, mobile, and sustainably accessible archive.
At the centre of the project is the development of a prototype AR system for Düsseldorf, conceived as a pilot study with relevance for the wider state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Planned activities include case studies of recent and earlier art projects, the development of a requirements framework for an AR platform from archival, artistic, and user-centred perspectives, as well as the formulation of recommendations for different usage scenarios ranging from the retrospective archiving of historical works to the direct documentation of artworks in the course of their creation.
In the long term, AR-A aims to make art in public space digitally and durably accessible: for the public, as a new form of urban mediation; for artists, as a tool for the sustainable documentation of their work; and for institutions such as the Düsseldorf Art Commission, as a practical approach to archiving and administration. The project is being carried out by MIREVI at Hochschule Düsseldorf in cooperation with Witten/Herdecke University (Prof. Dr. Renate Buschmann, Chair of Digital Arts and Cultural Mediation) and the artist Michalis Nicolaides.
Funded in 2026 by the Regional Culture Funding programme of the Landschaftsverband Rheinland (LVR).