Apophenia in AR: Augmented Reality art exhibition at Tampere City Hall
x-CITE (Expanding the Experience of Citizens through Extended Reality) is a project co-funded by the EU’s Digital Europe Programme and implemented by 11 European partners. In Tampere, the project focuses in particular on how culture, history and art can be presented through experiential, interactive and immersive digital solutions. For residents and visitors, this means new ways to explore the city’s culture, history and art through, for example, interactive content, exhibitions and storytelling.
One of the project’s pilot implementations is an “invisible” AR art exhibition created in the City Hall lobby. The artworks appear on the screen of a mobile device when the device is pointed at the Tampere.Finland fabric located next to the wall.
The works in the exhibition are based on the Apophenia graduate exhibition of the Degree Programme in Media and Arts at Tampere University of Applied Sciences. While the artworks have been presented earlier at Gallery Himmelblau in spring 2026, the City Hall presentation brings them alive again in a new format and setting.
The exhibition features the following artists: Uliana Abrosimenkova, Alexia Bastea, Hai Dinh, Anastasia Gluštšenko, Linda Haume, Karoliina Koljonen, Utu Korhonen, Sini Loponen, Alisa Malin, Minttu Nurmi, Julianna Saarela, Annika Tammi, and Henna Videnoja. The exhibition is open until the end of August.
– Collaboration with TAMK provides a great opportunity to bring the works of emerging artists into the city in a new way. Using augmented reality, art can appear where people already move about — making the urban environment more engaging, experiential and surprising, states Sebastian Valkama, project manager for x-CITE.
