Digital humanities offer ways for scholars to explore how technology impacts our fundamentals. For example, three basic modes of writing are expository, narrative, and persuasive. But, what if we used those same three guidelines, to expose, to narrate, to persuade, by using new technology to alter our understanding of a space? We propose that by using the augmented reality app, Aurasma, at the Harn Museum of Art, THATCamp participants can interact and immerse themselves in the museum experience by researching online, recording videos, and generating keywords about a particular work of art. Throughout the day, we encourage participants to research an artist, art movement, or medium that appeals to them at the Harn and find a URL to a particularly illuminating article or site. We then ask that participants pick a particularly inspirational work in order to generate keywords. Finally, we challenge participants to record a short video in the Harn persuading others to support the arts and humanities. We will teach a short demo using the app to show how to augment works of art in the morning and at the end of the day we ask that participants share what they have made and make the augmentations publicly available to inform, illuminate, and inspire future visitors to the site.

*The technology required is all available for free on most mobile devices: Aurasma allows users to use images as triggers for overlays including websites, videos, and images and there are word cloud generators available online. 

Emily Brooks and Shannon Butts