The MIT Open Documentary Lab's AR and Public Space Artist Collective presents Layers of Place, a multiyear exploration of how digital augmentation reshapes our understanding of space, place, and shared histories. Through Hoverlay, a location-based mobile AR app, MIT's landscape becomes an evolving canvas for urban annotation, bridging personal, communal, and historical experiences.
Visitors explore MIT's iconic sites through geo-located markers and digital overlays, each revealing unique stories and perspectives. While individual projects serve as distinct portals, the exhibition's power emerges through collective experience. These layered encounters yield a prismatic viewpoint that captures diverse narratives and reveals nuanced dimensions of place. The campus transforms into a multidimensional inquiry exploring racial justice, historical memory, monuments, environmental stewardship, and technology's impact on civic life.
Eight distinct perspectives emphasize plurality and nuance, expanding "public space" to encompass both physical campus and virtual AR layers. Through three featured projects—The Fovnder's Pillars; 1 to Infinity, MIT; and Moving Memory—visitors participate in a new form of communal experience.
Take a Guided Tour
Mar 5 // 5:00–6:00pm // Guided Tour of Layers of Place at MIT Artfinity: An Augmented Reality Exhibition
Join Sarah Wolozin, Director of the MIT Open Documentary Lab, and artists Lori Landay and Danny Goldfield for a guided tour of Layers of Place, an augmented reality (AR) exhibition that reimagines MIT’s campus as a tapestry of hidden stories and perspectives. This tour will explore all three featured projects. Experience how AR transforms MIT’s public spaces into immersive storytelling landscapes.
About the Projects
Fovnders Pillars by Lesiba Mabitsela, Meghna Singh, and Simon Wood
Location: Building 7 Portico
About the Project: The Fovnder’s Pillars is an AR memorial honoring the six enslaved individuals once owned by MIT founder William Barton Rogers. Drawing from six African regions, each represented by a distinct textile and its associated myth, the project weaves decolonial tropes and tales of freedom-making into six videos that fuse classical architecture with African artistry. Activating the pillars, it reclaims space, transforming the façade into a living tribute to the African diaspora’s ancestral roots and confronting the Institute’s legacy of historical injustice.
About the Artists: Meghna Singh and Simon Wood, Cape Town-based artists, investigate colonial and capitalist legacies through decolonial approaches. Their collaborations blend XR, video, and public art. Lesiba Mabitsela, a South African interdisciplinary artist and fashion practitioner, is a founding member of the African Fashion Research Institute.
1 to Infinity, MIT by Danny Goldfield
Location: Infinite Corridor, begin the experience in Lobby 7
About the Project: 1 to Infinity, MIT is a portrait photography series where the goal is to feature one person from the MIT community that is each age—a 1-year-old, 2-year-old, 3, 4, and continuing sequentially. The project began on the first day of the spring semester 2025, and with your help, we can include someone from every age. More information at 1toinfinity.com.
About the Artist: Danny Goldfield’s photography projects use numbers as a way to meet new people and portray a moment in their lives. To Live 10,000 Years portrays two people—both at least 100 years old—from each of the 50 United States, while NYChildren portrays one child from every country on Earth, all living in New York City. He holds an MFA from the American Film Institute (AFI) Conservatory and works with MIT Mechanical Engineering.
Moving Memory by Lori Landay
Location: Lawn in front of MIT Stratton Student Center, Building W20
About the Project: Move inside your mind. Moving Memory uses motion capture of dancers, animated objects, and music to invite you to move and play around Jaume Plensa’s sculpture Alchemist. Move to the music, maybe mimicking the animated figures. Take some pictures to keep private or post if you choose using the hashtag #movingmemoryar and #artfinity. Consider what it means to be you, in an enclosure that is both interior and exterior, public and private. What do you intend to remember about this moment? What does a photo capture?
About the Artist: Lori Landay is professor of cultural studies, new media, and visual culture at Berklee College of Music. An interdisciplinary artist-scholar, she explores image, movement, and sound through live performance, video, and extended reality (XR).
Additional Credits: Kanella Benavides, dancer; Kate Warner, dancer; Alissa Cardone, choreography; MIT nano.Immersion Lab, motion capture
