John Craig Freeman
John Craig Freeman is an artist with over three decades of experience using emerging technologies to produce large-scale public work at sites where the forces of globalization are impacting the lives of individuals in local communities. With his work, Freeman expands the notion of ‘public’ by exploring how digital technology and mobile networks are transforming our sense of place. Freeman is a founding member of the international artists collective Manifest.AR and he has produced work and exhibited around the world. In 2016 he traveled to Wuhan China as part of the ZERO1 American Arts Incubator. In 2015, he was the recipient of a commission from LACMA’s Art+Technology Lab. He was also awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship by the NEA in 1992. Freeman is a Professor of New Media Art at Emerson College in Boston. Visit artist website for more info johncraigfreeman.net
Currently following projects by Freeman are on view throughout VR Art Village:
Boat for One: Incoming Tide, Fort Stark
Orators Rostrums and Propaganda Stands: Hong Con
A Boat for One: Incoming Tide, Fort Stark
Freeman: A Boat for One: Boston Sea Level Rise
image courtesy of VR Art Village
Freeman: A Boat for One: Boston Sea Level Rise
image courtesy of VR Art Village
Freeman: Coming Tide, Fort Stark
image courtesy of VR Art Village
Originally developed as a proposal for physical public art at Boston Common, A Boat for One: Fort Stark, is based on science developed at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other governmental research agencies. Consisting of a virtual rowboat atop a 10 meter pylon, it offers an accurate prediction of sea level by the end of this century and beyond, using the most up-to-date climate change models available. The sea level gauge inscribed onto the pylon is based on scientific data published in Chapter 12: Sea Level Rise of the Climate Science Special Report, Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), Volume I. This report is an authoritative assessment of the science of climate change, with a focus on the United States. It represents the first of two volumes of the Fourth National Climate Assessment, mandated by the Global Change Research Act of 1990.
A Boat for One: Fort Stark acts as a teleport portal to an immersive virtual experience. When the viewer approaches the pylon, she is transported to locations around New England and beyond which are vulnerable to sea level rise, starting at Fort Stark on the Sea Coast of New Hampshire. In the public art proposal, the viewer is transported via augmented reality technology, and here in virtual reality. The Fort Stark seascape was rendered on location using LiDAR scanning photogrammetry technology.
by John Craig Freeman
Orators Rostrums and Propaganda Stands: Hong Con
Freeman: Orators Rostrums and Propaganda Stands
Image courtesy of VR Art Village
Freeman: Orators Rostrums and Propaganda Stands
Image courtesy of VR Art Village
Freeman: Orators Rostrums and Propaganda Stands
Image courtesy of VR Art Village
Video courtesy and image of VR Art Village.
Orators, Rostrums, and Propaganda Stands: Hong Con is an update and reimagining of the original augmented reality public art project, commissioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Artists Respond program in 2012. This project was inspired by the work of Gustav Klucis, including his designs for Screen-radio Orators, Rostrums, and Propaganda Stands from 1922, which were never actually built. Klucis was trying to harness the emerging technologies of his time, –radio, amplified audio, and cinema to create a new form of public art for the public square. Recognizing that traditional forms of public art, –bronze and marble statues, would be too time consuming and expensive, Klucis and his contemporaries proposed relatively inexpensive structures which could be quickly assembled in public spaces to communicate complex political ideas to a largely illiterate population.
In addition to the original exhibition at LACMA, the AR version of Orators, Rostrums, and Propaganda Stands was exhibited at Triennale di Milano in Milan Italy, Der Kunsthallen Nikolaj in Copenhagen, in Statue Square in Hong Kong during SIGGRAPH Asia in 2013, and in Speaker Square Singapore, the only place where citizens are allowed to practice free speech, although a government permit is required to do so.
Visitors to the VR Art Village will come upon the magic umbrella, which will teleport them to John Craig Freeman’s Orators, Rostrums, and Propaganda Stands VR installation. The screens atop the orator, provides viewers with a timelapse tour of Hong Kong shot from the upper deck of one of the city’s vintage ding-dings in 2016.
Whereas the public square was once the quintessential place to air grievances, display solidarity, express difference, celebrate similarity, remember, mourn, and reinforce shared values of right and wrong, it is no longer the only anchor for interactions in the public realm. In the early 1990s, we witnessed the migration of the public sphere from the physical realm, the town square and its print augmentation, to the virtual realm, –the placelessness, –the everywhere-but-nowhere of the Internet. In effect, the global digital network has facilitated the emergence of a new virtual space, which corresponds to the physical geography around us. Orators, Rostrums, and Propaganda Stands: Hong Con asks the question, what does monumentality and memorial become in the era of global mobile networks, virtual and augmented reality?
by John Craig Freeman
Wuhan
“In 2016, Freeman traveled to the city of Wuhan in the Hubei District of Central China as part of the U.S. State Department’s cultural diplomacy program, the ZERO1 American Arts Incubator. Wet Market, Wuhan is part of an extensive body of work, which documents the rapidly changing city and seeks to shed light on the complex and nuanced culture and history of the place.” – John Craig Freeman
For more project info, visit https://bit.ly/3ASx9Ul
Wuhan portal in VR Art Village, through which a visitor will teleport to John Craig Freeman’s Wuhan virtual experience 
Wuhan Wet Market, by John Craig Freeman
Screenshot courtesy of VR Art Village
Wuhan Wet Market, by John Craig Freeman
Screenshot courtesy of VR Art Village
Wuhan VR + AR, by John Craig Freeman. Screenshot courtesy of VR Art Village
Tank Man/Goddess of Democracy (collaboration of 4Gentlemen)
In 1989, students from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing erected a 10-meter tall plaster statue during the uprising in Tiananmen Square. Known as the Goddess of Democracy the gesture taunted government officials to tear it down, which of course, they did.
The other indelible image from the Tiananmen Square uprising was, of course, Tank Man facing down a column of Type 62 tanks. You might recall the controversy over Google’s announcement of its intent to comply with Internet censorship laws in China. Critics viewed the move as capitulation to China’s “Golden Shield Project.” In accordance with Chinese law, search results for ‘Tank Man’ are not shown. In November 2012, China blocked access to Google. All Google domains, including Google search, Gmail, Google Maps, etc., became inaccessible.
This work was originally exhibited in 2011 as an augmented reality public art project and memorial, dedicated to human rights and democracy worldwide. Built for early smartphone mobile devices, this project allowed people to see virtual objects integrated into the physical location as if they existed in the real world. Visible only through the viewfinder of a smartphone, both augmentations were placed in Beijing at the precise GPS coordinates where the original incidents took place. Tank Man and Goddess of Democracy asks the question, who will assert dominion over the new virtual public space that is emerging around us?
by John Craig Freeman
Video and image courtesy of VR Art Village, 2021
Chinese Takeout (collaboration of 4Gentlemen)
Chinese Take Out visualizes the gruesome reality that the Chinese government has been systematically harvesting organs from imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners for profit.
