Chiara Passa on AR Filters, Virtual Spaces, and the Widget Art Gallery

In an interview with Valentina Tanni, artist Chiara Passa discusses her Instagram filter "Object Oriented Filter," created for the Art Layers project. The filter uses augmented reality to create a 360-degree immersive virtual environment around the viewer's head, controllable by head, eye, and eyelash movements. Passa explains that she repurposed the standard AR software to generate VR, pushing its limits. She sees artist filters as a way to reach broad audiences but notes the need for curatorial programs to distinguish art from amateur projects. Passa also reflects on her long-standing exploration of space, from her 1997 Live Architectures series to using VR and AR to blur physical and virtual realms. She discusses her Widget Art Gallery (WAG), launched in 2008 as a Mac dashboard widget and later a web-app, which has hosted digital works by artists including Tomaso Binga and Michael C. Andrews. WAG now also features students from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma. Upcoming projects include AR/VR installations in museums and a book on the net art blog Ideasonair (2005-2012). Passa's work has been shown at Vancouver Art Gallery, MAK Vienna, MAXXI Rome, Reina Sofía Madrid, and the Venice Biennale.