Artists Statement

Augmented Reality (2015)

Unknown Meetings is a site-specific augmented reality project that takes as its premise the awkward and surreal encounters of daily occurrences during commutes. Designed by artist Matt Roberts and poet Terri Witek for Vancouver’s local transportation system, SkyTrain riders can see a floating, out of place object on their smartphones, and hear a poetic fragment. These take place whenever the train approaches a station, creating unexpected juxtapositions that shift the anxiety of arrival onto disruptive, ephemeral “connections”.

• Artist Matt Roberts has been featured internationally, including Taiwan, Brazil, Canada,  Argentina, Italy, Mexico, and in New York, San Francisco, Miami, and Chicago. He has shown in new media festivals, and recently received an award from the Transitio_MX Festival in Mexico City.
• Terri Witek is the author of Exit Island, The Shipwreck Dress (both Florida Book Award  Medalists), Courting Couples (Winner of the 2000 Center for Book Arts Contest), among others. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals, and she is the recipient of fellowships from MacDowell Colony, Hawthornden International Writers’ Retreat, and the state of Florida, USA.

Text with images (PDF)  p. 96-97