A.R.t distorting reality: augmented immateriality in Mixed Signals by kennedy+swan

With the rapid evolution of digital technology, both artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR) become increasingly accessible to the general public. As a result, contemporary artists have begun incorporating these technologies into their work, expanding beyond the established mediums of the arts. In this paper, I study the artist’s book Mixed Signals (2023) by kennedy+swan, a contemporary iteration of the genre that merges the conventional codex of the book with the digital, by incorporating interactive AR elements into the work. Primarily characterised by their self-referentiality, artists’ books often turn the medium itself into the subject matter of the work. Accordingly, the simultaneously tactile and digital materiality of Mixed Signals is one of its central themes, along with commentary on the meaning of AI and other forms of non-human intelligence, expressed throughout a series of nature-themed watercolours that transform into interactive augmented artworks through a smartphone app. These complex virtual artworks, I argue, not only act as an expansion of the book’s narrative, but also constitute a contemporary form of artistic expression that merges the material and immaterial. I further suggest that Mixed Signals challenges the concept of an anthropocentric society through its technology-induced distortion of reality.