The Tate ‘Untold Stories’ AR Effects
Alongside Facebook’s Spark AR Platform team, The Mill Experiential & Interactive team is bringing iconic artworks in The Tate Britain to life this summer through Augmented Reality. ‘Untold Stories’ is a project that explores the hidden narrative of existing paintings and the artists behind them. Specifically, the untold stories that bear relevance to the contemporary audience, sociopolitical and cultural challenges that the artist and subject faced at the time.
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Role:  Spark AR + Cinema 4D + Animation 

Production: The Mill
Executive Creative Director: Rama Allen
Executive Producer: Desi Gonzalez
Creative Director: Sally Reynolds
Videographer: Rauri Cantelo
Developers: Kim Kohler, Jack Kalish, Jeffrey Wang, Richard Lapham
Designers: Conrad McLeod, Steve Kutny, Ben Weaver, Daniel Whitaker
Senior Producer: Hayley Underwood Norton
Production Coordinator: Oliver Schwartz 
CREDITS +
3D process showing the animation and rigs used to build the Spark AR project for Edward Francis Burney’s Amateurs of Tye-Wig Music. Using their smartphones, visitors access the virtual wing via the Tate Instagram account and view the Harmony and discord, also known as Musicians of the Old School. Brought to life by AR, the visitor is entertained by a barking dog and mischievous parrot as the rivalry between traditional music (presided over by Handel) and the avant guard (Beethoven and Mozart) is played out before their eyes.
AR process for The Farm at Watendlath by Dora Carrington, featured via Instagram as a virtual wing for the Tate Britain, August 2019. Hinting at the power of the feminine in the strong lines of the hills that dominate the scene. Watching the animation, the viewer may wonder whether strength comes from the land, or from the human in the landscape.
Facebook's Spark AR platform was used to create a virtual wing for Tate Britain spotlighting the role of augmented reality as a tool for visitor engagement. The enigma of The Cholmondeley Ladies, with their similar but not identical expressions, clothing and infants in swaddling gowns, is deepened as the visitor watches them move through life’s events together. The finery of the rich gowns and decorative ruffled collars suggests wealth and status but also hints at predetermined lives.
Gwen John’s Self-Portrait, like Simpson’s portrait Head of a Man, raises questions of vulnerability and rawness in portraiture. Whether subject or artist, the process of creating art is a sensitive one, as well as being painfully revealing. Watching John at work allows the viewer to experience some of the emotions of the artist themselves.
Exploration of an AR treatment for Duncan Grant's 1911 painting, Bathing.
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