Snapchat has unveiled a new digital art project, in partnership with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), which will install five new digital 'monuments' in locations around LA "that explore history and representation for communities" throughout the region.
The new monuments will be viewable through the Snap camera, allowing users to interact with the expanded installations, as well as providing these projects with wider audience reach around the globe.

Explains Snap:

"Meant to be seen at places all around the city via the Snapchat Camera, you can find them at locations such as LACMA, MacArthur Park, Earvin "Magic" Johnson Park, and Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. If you are in the area, there's nothing to do but hunt for markers on the Snap Map to find the digital monuments easily."

The new project is the latest in Snapchat's ongoing exploration of AR as an artistic medium and a form of presentation for modern artworks.

Snapchat had already launched its first massive AR art installation in 2017, where Jeff Koons placed his digital sculptures in different locations for Snap users to inspect.
For example, Snapchat has collaborated with British painter Damien Hirst on a charity-inspired AR art project while it launched its first 'City Painter' collaborative AR art project in Carnaby Street in London late last year.
This move, through such experiments, is giving Snap a new pathway not only in the AR novelty or gimmick-driven use, but also to propel the medium and make it a real art form, to present these new works to a larger audience. And with the increase of digital art through NFTs, that will be an important element while also allowing Snap to nurture a true creative culture around AR tools instead of merely seeking to maximize simple engagement and metrics.

Through this project particularly, Snap will also try to optimize advocacy and representation in its art projects, and it's another powerful example of how modern options are advancing our creative capacity, and how these find new ways for artists to connect to newer audiences.

That could be important in a few ways, not only facilitating the maintanance of Snap at the forefront of the AR shift that is likely to gain significant momentum with the advent of AR-enabled wearables and other devices.

But Snap's work here is actually way more important than people realize-the next generation will only know a world in which AR exists, and the next cohort of creators are more and more likely to be digital artists, armed with AR expertise.

That will drive audience expectations around the same, and before long, every art gallery will need to be investing in AR tools to facilitate expression.

The AR shift is going to be large, and Snap seems to be positioned to have a significant part of that.

If you're not in LA, you can view Snapchat's new digital monuments via the LACMA website.