Photo: Kim Tunnicliffe (WBZ NewsRadio)
WORCESTER, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — You can find some strange three-dimensional creatures hanging around Worcester Common, as long as you have the right equipment.
The creatures are part of art professor and video game designer Abraham Tena’s augmented reality art installation "Bodily Autonomy AR Lab." The only way to see the oddities at all four corners of the common is with a smartphone and a free app from software company Hoverlay. Once downloaded, visitors can search for the channel "AbeTena2022" and discover the creatures for themselves.
"I’ve heard people call them creatures. I even hear people call them monsters," Tena told WBZ NewsRadio Wednesday. "Overall, though, the goal of them is to stay in that place in-between. Make you think like, oh yeah, things could be different and weird and strange and interesting."
Tena's creations include a figure with a pinkish body and cubed, featureless green head, a metallic figure standing next to a tall flower, and a patterned mirror floating in the sky. Although the designs cannot be heard or touched, visitors can still interact with them with their phone from every possible angle.
"You can walk up to it. Look up, look down. It’s as if it was here," Tena said.
The installation was funded by a Worcester Arts Council grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and will be running until the end of the year.
WBZ's Kim Tunnicliffe (@KimWBZ) reports.
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