A community of Indonesian artists is using technology to promote its mural, with hopes that this will attract tech-savvy tourists and boost the local economy.
By adopting augmented reality technology, the artist enclave of Dago Pojok has become the latest attraction in Bandung, a city located 140 kilometers from capital Jakarta.
Most of the murals in the area are scannable through a smartphone app “Indonesia In Your Hand”, which allows visitors to understand the creation process of the artwork.
“I’m here for a tour. I found out about this village on the internet and I think it’s really nice to have augmented reality technology in here. This kind of technology is really useful for tourists from overseas, especially those who are not familiar with this city,” said Ephraim Tan from Jakarta.
Augmented reality technology, which has rapidly grown since 2010, is not new to the world, but it’s a first for Indonesia.
The German town of Nuenen has been using a similar technolgy to introduce the works of Vincent van Gogh, who used to live there.
At Dago Pojok they began implementing the technology in November after the app company offered a collaboration.
“Murals are the way this creative village expresses itself, so we decided to implement augmented reality technology on these murals. This village is probably the world’s first augmented village. At the same time we hope to increase the number of domestic and international visitors, so the profit, especially in culinary and handicraft businesses, will increase. It will also help the economy of this creative village,” said Amiranto Wibowo, the CEO of “Indonesia In Your Hand” app.
The company is currently cooperating with the Indonesia’s tourism board to create a nationwide service to promote tourism.
Other than Bandung, similar projects are up and running in well-known tourist destinations like ancient city of Yogyakarta and resort island of Bali.
Rahmat Jabaril, the brain behind the project, says the adoption of the app is in line with the core values of the local artists.
“We are open to traditional and modern values. We emphasize the importance of tolerance (when creating art), and constantly combine our culture with Western culture,” he said.
In Bandung there are now creative areas like Dago Pajok and the local government hopes to replicate the project in all 30 districts of the city in the next three years.
“In 2018, every district in Bandung city should have their own creative village,” said Nanang Sodikin, who is an official of Tourism and Culture Department of Bandung.
Earlier this month, Bandung was designated as a UNESCO Creative City of Design and is set to be included in this year’s UNESCO Creative Cities Network along with Budapest and Singapore. (Reuters)
