Mihai Păcurar - exploring urban spaces and augmented reality magic!

On October 27, Reactor is thrilled to get ready for the launch of the LOC platform, an amazing augmented reality app designed for art, education, and urban exploration! We are kicking things off by inaugurating the virtual installation THE CITY OF THE FUTURE at 4:00 PM, on Eroilor Boulevard (near the Memorandists' Monument), Cluj. This wonderful platform was initiated and coordinated by Mihai Păcurar, an incredible interdisciplinary artist, whom we asked to share a few words about this exciting project.

For a while now, I’ve been trying to tune in more closely to the needs and triggers that pop up in my relationship with the city. This process requires a special kind of mindfulness, a beautiful contrast to the mindless rush we usually fall into on our way to somewhere or something. It is an ongoing journey that shines a spotlight on the close bond between us as individuals and the very structure of our city, revealing the fascinating tensions between how urban space is designed and our cozy needs for living in it.

With this spark in mind, I decided to gather all those wonderful, proactive energies that are constantly searching for alternative ways of living together (both among ourselves and with our non-human companions). Taking it a step further, I created a platform where Cluj's talented artists, researchers, activists, and students can come together and explore delightful, alternative living solutions for real urban spaces! This dream blossomed into an augmented reality app designed to build a lively bridge between these changemakers and the city's residents. It’s a wonderful tool for sparking critical thinking and creativity, acting as a virtual stage that brightens public space without physically crowding it.

During the pandemic, I also co-created a performative installation called While We Inhabit, born from that same passion to understand our connection to the city. If I were to pick one main idea that links both of these projects, it would be the joyful exploration of the endless perspectives on living, as opposed to the rigid, standard solutions that flatten or polarize our shared experiences as city dwellers.

My dream for the coming years is to build exciting, hands-on projects tailored to specific spots around the city. These will feature fascinating research modules led by brilliant experts in ecology, sustainability, urban planning, and biology. Their insights will inspire hands-on workshops for curious school and university students, as well as captivating artworks created by artists from diverse fields—ranging from land art, video art, and field recording to storytelling and performance art! The wonderful discoveries from these labs will be transformed into magical augmented reality pieces, creating an interactive, hidden layer over the physical city.

I truly believe augmented reality is a fantastic tool for playing with our daily surroundings! It's a medium that can beautifully connect us to the past, present, and future of our community through multiple lenses—whether we are talking about global warming, access to resources, gentrification, segregation, or our footprint on the environment.

Yet, the most magical tool in all of this is the wonderful opportunity for experts, artists, young minds, and everyday citizens to meet, collaborate, and share ideas!

I believe it all comes down to intention and focus. Just like I mentioned at the start, the simple act of pausing to zoom in or out on a detail completely changes how we experience time and space. Connections become clearer, your own path shines brighter, and your ability to focus on what matters becomes sharper. I believe that when we give ourselves the chance to channel our energy into inspiring settings and meaningful connections, time beautifully stretches, exploration gets exciting, and we can make a real, positive impact on the future!

I chose the theme of the future because it felt like the perfect match for our platform’s pilot installation: LOC – The City of the Future. I’ve wanted to work with children for a long time, and I was so curious to see how they picture the future today, compared to how we did 30 years ago! In other other words, I wanted to see how today's vibrant economic and cultural landscape shapes their wonderful imaginations.

Together with the fantastic Natalia Ciobanu and Marius Mornea from Sustainable Cluj, we designed a wonderful four-day workshop. We started with each child's unique vision of their future home and woven them together into a lively community with creative ways of sharing resources, trading, and negotiating shared spaces! To make things even more exciting, we simulated wild climate scenarios to see how the community would team up to solve them. For the workshop sessions, we were delighted to be joined by Delia Gavlițchi from MiniReactor. Those four days turned out to be an absolute powerhouse of inspiration, showing us not just how creative kids are, but also how much we need programs like this in schools! The children jumped right in with so much enthusiasm, tackled every challenge with a smile, and I bet they can't wait to explore their virtual community inside the LOC app!

The wonderful creations from this workshop were then brought to life in augmented reality by the brilliant team at the Augmented Space Agency, resulting in a fantastic virtual installation filled with sights and sounds—a playful time capsule of this exact moment in time and space!

You'll be able to explore this installation through the LOC mobile app wherever you find a flat surface (a table, a floor, or a sidewalk). Even better, we are launching it in the public space on Eroilor Boulevard, right by the Memorandists' Monument, where you can easily jump into the app using a fun informational totem!

In the coming months, we hope to develop a handy guide to accompany the app, so teachers and students can use it in schools as a fun conversation starter about sustainability.

Discover more details about the project and our exciting October 27 launch right HERE