Amos Rex aspires to be an art museum where the past, the present and the future meet. To immerse visitors in a time travel to the past, they used the future - augmented reality.
The AR Flashback experience is paving the way for future AR campaigns and content to come.
| Client | Amos Rex & Danske Bank |
| AR & Content production | Arilyn |
Art museum Amos Rex wanted to create their first AR experience at the beginning of 2019, paving the path for augmented reality to become an integral part of a museum experience.
It was natural for the AR content to have the same theme as a museum that prides itself on where the past, the present and the future meet, with exhibitions ranging from experimental and contemporary installations to art from ancient times.
The Amos Rex building is a historical one. Lasipalatsi, as it is known, is a functionalist office building right in the centre of Helsinki. With decades of history and many stories to tell, taking old archive material and making it come alive, augmented reality felt like a natural way to link time and place – taking a glance at the past with the help of the future.
"A tribute to the city, it's people, the architecture, the time, the place and the art" - Otso Kähönen, Creative Director of Arilyn, says about the project.
The result became an augmented time travel experience, AR Flashback, shedding light on the history of Lasipalatsi and its' surroundings. Flyers at the reception, coasters at nearby cafés, and window stickers, round like the famous windows of Amos Rex, are ignited by scanning them with the Arilyn app.
After scanning, a menu opens up. You can choose a decade to delve into, each presented and guided by a Finnish media person, Youtuber, show host, and an artist Seksikäs Suklaa. The experience is available in Finnish.
Also, the museum organised a one-time, in-person tour guided by Seksikäs Suklaa.
The AR Flashback's primary target group is Amos Rex's younger museum visitors. The museum wanted to offer all its visitors a taste of the future with AR, but garnering interest and engagement from younger generations was of the essence.
Later on, a concert by Seksikäs Suklaa was organised on the museum square, giving young listeners the chance to see, meet and dance to their AR guide.
A successful first AR campaign for Amos Rex, paving the way for many more to come - one of which you can read about here. Danske Bank is a partner in immersive technology for Amos Rex, supporting immersive experiences for modern museum visitors today and in the future.