ARpoise vs Space Time Layering

ARpoise is an augmented reality app that enables you to view the AR artworks like "Evolution of Fish", "Lotus Meditation" or "Suspended Spring." "Lotus Meditation" is a geo-locative artwork that can be viewed anywhere in the world to mediate on the Lotus Sutra. It was developed for the Kennin-ji Zen Temple in Kyoto, where it premiered on March 14 2019 as part of the "Art Innovation" Exhibition and Symposium. To use "Lotus Meditation," start the app, then cup your smartphone between your two hands. Search for the lotus flowers that surround you. Gently focus on one of the flowers in the middle of your screen until it enlarges to envelope you. In its heart you will find a special surprise.

This app is part of an intermedial art project by visual artist Annegret Bleisteiner that explores the complex interrelations of space, time, memory, and feminist perspectives. As an artist, Annegret Bleisteiner has long worked with the layering principle, combining multiple temporal, narrative, and spatial layers to create poetic, multifaceted spaces. The “Space-Time Layering” app invites users to actively engage in this process by freely placing digital artworks in space, stretching narrative bands, and hearing the voices of significant women from history and the present. The menu item “Placing artworks” allows users to freely pause and position the digital artworks “Flexible Areas” and “Collective Maze.” This creative act of freedom foregrounds the principles of artistic appropriation and collective experience. The conscious lingering and pausing reflect Bleisteiner’s artistic practice, which always works with layers of time, space, and memory. In the “Stretching bands” section, interactive lines are anchored in space. These bands connect different places of memory and create a dynamic network serving as a metaphor for the complexity of history and social relationships. The AI-supported function playfully assists in creating additional narrative layers. The “Women portraits” section brings the voices of important female artists, writers, and philosophers from different epochs into the space. Users encounter pioneers like George Sand, a trailblazer of female autonomy and creative freedom, and Bettina von Arnim, a voice of Romanticism and social critique. Their fragmented thoughts intertwine with the environment and invite users to reflect anew on history and the present. The app merges modern digital technologies such as augmented reality, AI-supported language and image transformation with a feminist artistic practice that questions traditional concepts of space, time, and memory. The installation draws inspiration from philosophical concepts that understand time as layering—such as Henri Bergson, who describes art as a space for the unfolding of new realities: “Art is not a reflection of reality but a space for the unfolding of new realities.” Another key philosophical insight comes from David Lewis, who views time as a layered fabric where different times can coexist simultaneously: “Time is not a linear sequence but a complex web of overlaps and relations.” From the catalog Homeland comes the insight that “space and time are not fixed dimensions but flexible and changeable—they are vessels that absorb and reveal stories and experiences.” Similarly, the catalog Wave Off formulates the idea that “in the layering of strata a poetic space emerges that preserves memories while also enabling new perspectives on the present.” With “Space-Time Layering,” Annegret Bleisteiner opens an interactive, poetic space inviting users not only as spectators but as co-creators. The app contributes to an expanded culture of memory, making history experienceable not as a linear narrative but as multiple overlapping layers.