FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Games

Bosch's 'Garden of Earthly Delights' Inspires an Augmented Reality App

It's an immersive take on the macabre masterpiece in Daft Design's latest iteration of 'Hermaton.'
Screencaps and GIFs by the author, via

Contorted designs on seven oversized flower pots trigger the virtual landscapes of Hermaton, an augmented reality app and sculpture garden from British developers Darf Design. The latest iteration of Hermaton, which we previously covered a few years ago, transforms the contemporary art attractions at the inaugural SHINE festival in s-Hertogenbosch, Hieronymus Bosch's Dutch birthplace into immersive virtual animations. As the developers explain on their website, "Each flower pot digitally augments into a virtual maze that players get to navigate around and explore new landscapes. Each level can be experienced by finding and switching on the various lightbulbs within this surrealistic maze." By angling their app precisely upon these lightbulbs, 'players' shoot a bright blue ball into the unlit fixtures, thus completing the sculptures with a gently audible swoop sound.

Advertisement

Like the other works included in the 11-day-long festival, Darf Design's adapted game synthesizes Bosch's macabre masterpiece, The Garden of Earthly Delights. By day, circling the planted outcroppings with smartphone in hand and eyes locked on their Hermaton app, players encounter wiggling appendages which recall the architectural oddities in the watery background of The Garden's "Heaven" panels. After dark, however, the virtual exoskeletons take on a new tone, invoking the sights and structures of the triptych's final hellish panel as they shiver around the unsettlingly up-lit vases.

Below, discover the delights of Darf Design's Bosch-inspired Hermaton:

Hermaton at Bosch Shine from Darf Design on Vimeo.

See more from Darf Design on their website and find out about other projects and installations at SHINE on the festival's site.

Related:

Hermaton: Enter the Grid Is An Augmented Reality Architectural Maze

Sculptures Come to Life in an Augmented Reality Art Gallery

Surreal 3D Video Game Puts an Architectural Spin on the Exquisite Corpse