Snapchat continues to develop new ways to connect traditional art and AR, this time via a new initiative, in partnership with The Lincoln Center, which uses Snap’s AR technology to bring the Center’s latest exhibition to life.

Called “Ghost Variations”, the new exhibition encourages visitors to download Snap to experience AR activations around the displayed works.

Created by AR developer Alexis Zerafa and digital artist and sculptor Sophie Kahn, the project “visualizes mental health and sound through a Snapchat augmented reality Lens” which is available in the app through to August 10th.

As per Snap:

“The subject of Ghost Variations is 19th century composer Robert Schumann, who, in the final years of his life at a psychiatric asylum, relied on the music of J.S. Bach as he navigated his deteriorating mental health. The busts, or heads, of Schumann, Bach, and a range of contemporary models are rendered via larger-than-life Snapchat augmented reality sculptures. Kahn played Schumann's music underwater, recorded the waveforms and mapped them onto the monumental heads as a visual embodiment of the way that we listen to music.” 

It’s another way for Snap to merge traditional art experiences with modern technology, with the platform already developing several major initiatives to help bring art to life.

Snap has previously launched digital art projects with The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco (FAMSF), while also working with renowned modern artists like Jeffrey Koons, Damien Hirst, KAWS and more, on various AR art activations.

It could be a good way to showcase the arts to a modern audience, with Snap providing a connection in creativity, which could also help to ensure that classic arts remain relevant and accessible to younger audiences.  

Ghost Variations is the next project along this line, and it could also help to promote the potential of AR art projects, and developing your skills in AR creation.

It’s an interesting initiative, which could hold even more value in future, as AR wearables become more broadly accessible.

You can learn more about the Ghost Variations project at the Lincoln Center here, while the experience can also be accessed globally within Snap by searching for the “Ghost Variations” Lens in the app.