E. Ravilious: Psychogeography

Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) was a British artist and designer. His watercolours of Sussex landscapes are loved for their modernist sensitivity and clarity. He served as a World War II artist and died in active service when the aircraft he was in was lost off Iceland.

This locative Augmented Reality (AR) app is one of the OpenAirGalleryAR series of AR walks by Haunted Planet Studios. Starting at Seven Sisters, Eastbourne, UK, it offers a great view of Sussex landscapes and the white cliffs of Beachy Head. The AR app is a gallery on a walk, viewed through the screen of smartphone, and features iconic Ravilious’ paintings such as ‘The Westbury Horse’, ‘The Willington Giant’, ‘Tiger Moth’ and others. It is intended to engage with the psychogeography (how places make us feel) of Sussex by showing Ravilious works from the vantage point where he painted them or near atmospherically relevant locations.

The app also features ‘Folk Songs from Sussex’ by George Butterworth collection of 1912, performed by Svetlana Rudenko (Piano) and Kelly Jakubowski (Violin), as well as original piano compositions on art and with narration by Mads Haahr.

The app has two modes: site-specific and random. In site-specific mode (staged in Sussex), you will experience the effect of psychogeography. In random mode, it will stage itself to any location in the world, e.g., a park, but music art encounters are not always reachable due to the random location.