AR project in public space, Melaten Cemetery, Cologne. Seven stations with artificial fiberglass stones and steel plaques. AR programmed in JavaScript and HTML 2024
Sacer Locus is an interactive AR walk through Cologne’s Melaten Cemetery, starting at Weinbergstraße and ending at Wallraf’s grave at Gate II — whose Latin inscription (“Sacer locus…”) gives the project its name.
In collaboration with the GeoMuseum of the University of Cologne, 3D-scanned minerals from Wallraf’s collection appear as digital interventions along the path, in dialogue with artificial rock markers that unlock phases of the experience via QR codes.
Guided by virtual will-o’-the-wisps (“fuegos fatuos”), visitors are encouraged to wander and get lost, reflecting on collecting as both knowledge-making and obsession. The minerals, once mere archival objects, are linked to their modern technological uses — copper, for instance, now powers the phone screens through which the experience unfolds. The walk ends at Wallraf’s grave, where the minerals reassemble into a small digital mausoleum, evoking unrealized and destroyed historical designs for the memorial.