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 MARC O MATIC
“I try to incorporate an analogue,
illustrative and painterly aesthetic
into my activations to create a
connection between the physical
and digital, evoking a sense of
traditional storybook nostalgia.”
Marc O Matic s an Australian self-
taught artist and illustrator. His portfolio
is extensive, from projects in his local
city of Melbourne and up to Adobe. He
originally started in traditional media
but has since developed this further
and stepped into the digital world. His
specialism is fusing the analogue and
digital together using his expertise of
both worlds.
His style is unique in the world of virtual
and augmented reality. He tried to
avoid the more blocky and geometric
feeling words that usually appear in
these virtual platforms and instead
wanted to keep the traditional style
intact. To do this, he still carries out ink
pen and paper illustrations, then use
3D modelling software such as Blender
to build his figures and designs. This
is combined with augmented or virtual
reality functionality in programs like Unity. He then sometimes adds ambient sounds,
music and voiceovers, which offers a truly immersive experience.
Some of his creations stem from physical drawings,
which open an animated world you can explore
when scanned with a camera phone. Others are
stand-alone options that can be accessed with a
simple QR code. His most notable work is called
‘Junk Age’. Once opened, the user can choose
where to place this new world in their immediate
environment. Once done, you can follow the prompt
to begin the story, bringing a series of animations
into sequence and a voiceover. This embodies what
he wants to show through his work; the feeling of
storytelling, being immersed in storybook nostalgia.
The whole experience is very enticing; whilst
listening to the story, there are also ambient sounds that add to the user experience.
The characters in the story are beautifully detailed with perfect movements, even
reacting to your touch, which triggers an animation. After each part of the story
ends, there is a key sound that the user can quickly recognise as a new ‘portal’
opening, which they can then search for and click to continue, much like turning the
page of a book. This, along with the skilful drawing and attention to detail on the
initial illustrations, makes
it one of my favourite AR
experiences.
 ALIDA SUN
Much of the work she makes is
interactive generative art. She creates
code and, with it, produces a range of
fun patterns, ranging from simple shapes
and squiggles to flowing, colourful
and complex art pieces. Some of her
favourite works are even as simple as
coding languages, such as punctuation
and letters that respond to movement
or music. She uses careful choices of
colour and pattern to translate her work
efficiently to the viewer, favouring black
and white pallets for her projection
mapping projects. The exhibits she
makes are very intuitive; despite using
technology that the audience may not have ever seen before, they immediately
see what effect their actions or the music have on the animation and the sounds it
creates (if any).

On her ‘day 1360’ exhibit, she showed an installation using light and code that
mimicked the person’s movement and showed this on screen. Depending on how
the person moved, different sounds were played. The installation was incredibly
responsive, quickly rewarding the person when they danced/made various gestures,
showing and sounding the results out for them to see and hear.

“Honestly, it feels like

I’m discovering what
generative art is all over
again every day.”
Alida Sun describes herself as an artist and intersectional futurist. She is a good
ambassador for girls who code and has been exploring generative art over the last
few years, posting her journey on her Instagram @alidasun. She promises her
audience a new piece of art each and every day for a total of 1300 days. These Another experimental piece she made was using her live video feed and the code
range from experiments and gestures to full complete artworks. Many of her finished she had written. Her shape was reflected in the code pattern, creating a silhouette
works are one-of-a-kind installations where generative art, blockchain technology of her figure that responded instantly to her movement. This super simple-looking
and live performance come together in a live performance. piece shows something she is very passionate about - girls in coding!
 KAREN X. CHENG
One project she did collaboratively
with other artists was creating an
augmented reality museum for use
as a filter online. This exhibited well-
known paintings, which the user could
then ‘look inside’. On looking inside the
frames, the rest of the painting could
be seen, having created an extension
of the piece using artificial intelligence
technology.

Another fun filter was a 3D

illusion, much like those we
see on paper but instead in
our immediate environment
through AR technology. This
example showed a creation
of a tiger which, when viewed
from a different angle,
became a rabbit to celebrate
the Chinese New Year. This
showed me that AR doesn’t
simply have to bring things
to life but can also present new and unique opportunities, such as this illusion that
otherwise would be impossible to create in 3D.
“If you’ve ever had that One of my favourite filters she has made was an augmented reality sketch of a

feeling that all the good ideas landscape. Once opened, you are presented with a black and white sketched
landscape featuring a pond which you can then go under and see beneath. I love
the amount of interaction you can have here, with the different levels only becoming

are taken already, I truly clear when explored and not evident at first sight. There are also windows within that
allow extra fun interactions. The fact that it is such a simple-looking sketch at first
makes it even more impressive.
think that VR is your chance
to do something new.”
Karen X. Cheng is known for being a successful director, with Facebook, Puma
and Adobe being a few notable examples of those she worked with. She creates
unique and quirky films or experiences using various techniques, sometimes drone
footage, filters, camera edits, virtual or augmented reality and artificial intelligence.
She is very active on social media, always posting her new creations. She often
comments with tips or tricks about what went into creating them and how to try them
for yourself. She has many amazing and unique works - too many to mention so we
will look at just a few.
 SUSI VETTER
One project shows her style very well, called the one-
eyed tiger. I like how her soft and delicate artwork
gives a warm and inviting feeling. A lot of it surrounds
landscapes, humans, and nature. The use of shape,
colour and texture in her designs helps to add life to
the scenes she creates. When exploring her creations
in AR you can often peek into the artwork and look
behind the paper almost. Her style reminds me of a
colouring book, like each artwork is a look at a page
of a children’s story.

She has also done many collaborative projects which

extend beyond her usual style. One such project was
done with a visual artist under the alias of ‘Human
Fractal’, which explored building an animated mask
that can be worn using augmented reality and in-
app filters. The way the art becomes more than
just a model in space, but something you can wear
intrigues me. This venture is certainly popular today,
where filters are flooding online social media apps.
Another collaboration with a greetings card company,
‘Postable’, saw her create a large, animated, dancing
gingerbread man. Again, this stepped outside her
usual style, but seeing how well this integrated into the
real world was fun, dancing around cars and amongst
buildings was fun.

“My focus lies on telling

immersive stories that blur
the borders of physical
and digital realities.”
Susi Vetter is an artist that comes from Berlin. She creates various works, stretching
from traditional illustrations to multimedia art, exploring the world of augmented
reality and digital art. The things she creates can be as simple as a pen sketch on
paper that, when digitised, evolves into a colourful composition. Others start off as a
seemingly finished artwork that you can dive deeper into.
 ZACHARY LIEBERMAN
He also makes interactive environments,
regularly showing fun interactive experiments
he made on his social media accounts. One
technique I love the look of is called finger
interactions, where, depending upon the
code, your fingers can dictate different things
that happen digitally using your camera. He
also does larger exhibitions where people
can interact directly with his creations. One
such work was a collaboration with another
artist, Molmol Kuo, in an exhibit called
Shadow Forms, held at Cinekidnl festival.
This allowed attendees to use their shadows
to alter the artwork on the screen, thanks to
the coding used.

Another interesting project he did that overlaps a few of the things explored in
this degree was a website made for M+ Museum in Hong Kong. This explored
Lieberman’s love for blobs and shapes, creating a website called ‘Atlas of Blobs’
featuring his interactive code, along with comments from other artists attempting to

“I create artwork with code, explore the blob forms’ characteristics. This website was fun to explore and scroll
through to see a variety of his work and what others thought, as well as just playing
with the shapes and forms as I scrolled.

and focus on building He aims to explore how poetry can be expressed through computer and code,
setting up the School for Poetic Computaton, where students can come and learn
experimental drawing about how code is poetic and how to write their own experimental piece. He also
helped in creating a coding software, ‘OpenFrameworks’, to help people explore the

and animation tools.” joys of creative coding for free.

Zachary Lieberman is an
American digital media
artist. He has been very
active online, creating
daily digital sketches
since 2016. He creates a
range of artworks using
code, focusing on creating
unique experimental
drawings and animations.
Much of his creations
explored similar coding techniques that I had come across, but on a professional
level, which is what piqued my interest. His works are wonderful, strange, and
whimsical; he always aims to surprise.
References:

Marc O Matic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=curwlnp7UKY
https://basa-studio.com/stories/7-AR-artists-who-are-raising-the-bar
https://canvas.saatchiart.com/art/art-news/meet-the-others-marc-o-matic
https://makersplace.com/marc0matic
https://www.behance.net/gallery/124544629/Junk-Age-AR-Storyworld-by-Marc-O-Matic

Alida Sun:
https://www.instagram.com/alidasun/?hl=en
https://www.cryptotimes.io/futurist-and-generative-artist-alida-sun-lives-life-on-the-internet/
https://twitter.com/i/status/1457711925253615620
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cmv8GiXtK1f/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Karen X. Cheng:
https://www.karenx.com/
https://www.tiktok.com/@karenxcheng/video/7190843016981105962
https://www.instagram.com/p/CiQK6EVJ_p3/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CnUoIEhjZZi/
https://www.instagram.com/p/Ce9FBY-JhoW/
https://creativecloud.adobe.com/cc/discover/article/the-unlock-karen-x-cheng-on-going-
viral-and-optimizing-for-fun?locale=en
https://futureofstorytelling.org/speaker/karen-x-cheng

Susi Vetter:
https://basa-studio.com/stories/7-AR-artists-who-are-raising-the-bar
https://www.instagram.com/susivetter/?hl=en
https://artivive.com/profile/susi-vetter/#:~:text=Susi%20Vetter%20is%20an%20
illustrator,projection%20mapping%20or%20augmented%20reality.
https://www.susivetter.art/

Zachary Leiberman:
https://www.mplus.org.hk/en/exhibitions/zachary-lieberman-atlas-of-blobs/
https://atlasofblobs.cc/
http://zach.li/
https://www.instagram.com/sfpc_nyc/
https://www.instagram.com/zach.lieberman/
NICOLA
ROSCOE