Portrait of a Town: the People of Hastings
The People of Hastings exhibition is the culmination of the four month XR22 creative technology community summer project: a digital, 3D mass-portrait of Hastings.
The portrait encompasses the town, its culture and its people, using the latest emerging XR technologies – Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, 3D scanning and WebAR. The Digital Arts Hub – through which much of the project took place – is run by Hastings Commons in collaboration with the project’s Creative Directors, ZEROH, responsible for the Bottle Alley light show amongst other things. People of Hastings has attracted hundreds of people keen to contribute to this representation of our town and its vibrant culture in 2022.
Every 3D scanned portrait made during the project has been printed as a 3D physical model. All of the hundreds of models will be on display at the Observer Building (Ground floor) from 1 October until the final event on 8 October, when everyone who has been scanned is invited to come and collect their model (for free).
People of Hastings 3D portraits will also be viewable on your mobile phone through augmented reality – point your phone at the QR code below and try it out (no app download needed)! All of the scans that make up the People of Hastings exhibition will also be added to a web archive – a persistent time capsule where anyone can view the portraits in 3D online. The archive will be launched at the final event on 8 October.
ZEROH said: “We were asked to devise an idea around community engagement with art and technology. We wanted to include everyone in this, so we made an open call for anyone to book a free portrait with the Digital Arts Hub team. The portrait-making process involved a 3D scan using LIDAR technology, which gives a colourful, detailed 3D digital model of the subject. Each portrait can be viewed through augmented reality: by pointing a camera at a palm-sized QR code. The QR code means images can easily be shared with anyone in the world. At the same time we are printing every single portrait as a miniature statue, a physical manifestation of the process, to be handed back to each and every subject at an event on 8 October.”
The Digital Arts Hub is a community creative technology project run by Hastings Commons with Zeroh since June 2022. Alongside the 3D mass portrait project it has organised a number of free digital arts related talks and workshops including Andrew Kötting’s VR films, game-making for kids, Digital Painting with Roz Hall and many others. The Digital Arts Hub will move to the Observer Building to form the core of Hastings Commons’ creative digital centre from September 2022 onwards: watch this space for news of new projects, activities and events! The Digital Arts Hub is funded by the Community Renewal Fund and UK Government.
Daniel Hardiker and Neil Hetherington – ZEROH – are Hastings-based mixed media artists. Their work often transforms spaces allowing audiences to challenge their own perspective and relationship with their environment. In 2018 they collaborated with author Gareth E Rees who wrote a folk myth based in Hastings, which ZEROH brought to life via an episodic app, encouraging audiences to engage in an unfolding story that used technology, art and performance across the town. This project was an origin story for the now legendary Hastings Moth Project.
• People of Hastings will be on the ground floor of the Observer Building, Cambridge Road, from 1 October to 8 October. It will be open from 1pm to 6pm daily. The closing event will run from 6pm–8pm on 8 October. The exhibition is fully accessible.
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