Artistic Statement

CITY IN TIME is a cutting-edge augmented reality (AR) project that offers Hong Kong residents and visitors a fully immersive way to experience the city’s extraordinary geographical and environmental transformation over time via their smartphone.

AR is a new technology that integrates digital images with the real world. It enables 360-degree historical panoramas of some of Hong Kong’s most visited and historically rich locations to be juxtaposed with the present-day surroundings so that users can simultaneously see Hong Kong past and present in some of its most visited and historically rich locations.

CITY IN TIME’s panoramas were created using historical photographs that were digitally assembled, as well as panoramic illustrations specially drawn and painted for the project by renowned Hong Kong artists. The panoramas were modelled in 3D so that optical tracking could be used to spatially align them with the actual environment, using AR.

Artistic Director
Jeffrey Shaw
Chair Professor,
Academy of Visual Art Director,
Visualization Research Centre
Hong Kong Baptist University