In collaboration with the artist JR, Superblue has announced the beta launch of the JR Reality platform. Expanding on the artist’s “Inside Out” project, which launched in 2013, JR Reality invites participants worldwide to attach portraits and voice messages to a specific place using AR. The project is experienced on a smartphone with the Superblue app, powered by Niantic—the creator of Pokémon GO and innovators of the real-world metaverse.
San Francisco will be the first city to be activated, followed by New York this fall, then London, Paris, Los Angeles, Miami, and Tokyo. This will not only be the world’s first artificial reality community network but the world’s largest participatory art project.
JR Reality mural with JR, courtesy of Superblue.
JR Reality involves an underlying 3-D map of individual cities, accessible as a shared frame of reference across all mobile devices. The virtual and massively-scaled experiment invites participants to go outside, explore their locales, and leave memories and experiences on a living mural for other participants. “Have you ever passed somebody on the street and wondered what their story is,” questioned JR. “Or looked up through a window and wondered who lives there, what kind of life do they have? It’s time to find out.”
The artist’s “Inside Out” project has given visibility and agency to nearly half a million people in 140 countries thus far, offering an interactive platform for users to share and discover first-hand stories of their cities, and connecting international communities through these personally- and physically-rooted virtual journals for years to come.
As the world reopens, JR affirms that “it’s time to go outside and explore, and reconnect with one another and show the world your face again. Together we can tell the world your story and meet the amazing people that live in your city.”
JR Reality self-portrait with JR, courtesy of Superblue.
JR Reality is now available and free to download on iOS and Android via closed beta in San Francisco. For users interested in a test run, the Superblue site offers a private waitlist to join.
