A new interactive art trail has been revealed on the Fallowfield Loop. The artwork runs between Chorlton and Levenshulme and is both visual and interactive through an app.
The trail officially opens today, Monday April 11, and is set up as a treasure map with the letters of the alphabet and numbers one to nine mixed up along the loop. There are 36 numbers and letters to collect, and by downloading the Artivive app, you can see them come to life.
The trail makes use of augmented reality and creates digital art from the letters and numbers hidden around the Fallowfield Loop.
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The street-art trail was a completely self-funded project by artist Oskar with a K , who painted all of the murals, and digital designer Will Albin-Clark , who created the digital artwork.
The trail begins at St. Werburgh’s Road tram station in Chorlton and runs along the Fallowfield Loop where it ends at the newly renovated Station South cycle cafe in Levenshulme. The cafe is also offering 15% off food and non-alcoholic beverages for anyone who can prove they have completed the treasure hunt of artworks.
Oskar explained how himself and Will came to create the art trail. He said: “I painted the murals on the Fallowfield Loop and Will gets the murals that I’ve painted and animated them.
“I live in Levenshulme so I was already painting quite a lot on the Fallowfield Loop. In a way, we were doing an existing project called ‘36 Days of Type’ which is an online graphic design challenge where you do the alphabet and numbers zero to nine over the course of 36 days.
“We were doing this challenge, and since I was painting all of the letters on the Fallowfield Loop, it made sense to make it into something that the public could engage with. It’s almost a treasure hunt style set up and people can go and try the app out for themselves.
“In a way, it has morphed into the Fallowfield Loop alphabet trail from an existing project."
Oskar also explained how to link the mural paintings with the digital art. He said: "To engage with it, go down to the Fallowfield Loop, there’s an app called Artivive, point your phone at the letter and it will start to animate in the space. It’s augmented reality, so you can see the mural and then on your phone see the animation playing over the top of the mural.
“They’re not in order, people have assumed that they would say things or be in order but no, they’re not in order. Actually yeah, they’re all scrambled up and the trail map has just been released now.”
To download the Artivie app, visit their website by clicking here.
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