Paulo Majano: I Was Here

“There’s more to this than meet the eye” is something one could accurately say about Paulo Majano’s latest project. Using augmented reality technology, I Was Here transforms photographs of people in park spaces and picturesque landscapes in Surrey and the surrounding area into surprising 3D scenes that invite the viewer to interact with the people and objects in them.

Majano captures commonplace scenes of people enjoying recreation time: “The Carved Tree,” “The Joke,” and “The Picnic Party” each contain a latent or hidden image. When the viewer holds up a smartphone or tablet to it using an augmented reality application, a 3D scene appears showing new details and angles. Like the latent thought in Freud's theory of dreams, Majano’s complex images offer potentially new narratives and layers of meaning.

Viewers can interact with the scene and reframe the composition from different points of view, or they can move in for a closer look or glance behind objects to discover elements not initially visible in the original photo. Ironically, since the viewer must move around the photograph to fully see it, this virtual medium creates the potential for active, physical interactions.

The exhibition and artist talk was presented as part of Capture Photography Festival.

Paulo Majano would like to thank AURASMA for supporting this project.

Curator: Brian Foreman
Origin of Exhibition: Surrey Art Gallery

Image credit (left): Paulo Majano, The Carved Tree—Campbell Valley (2014).

Image credit (right): The Picnic Party by Paulo Majano showing the latent image on an iPad.