Monument Lab’s OverTime is a public art and technology platform designed to allow users to dig deeper into the living history of a city. Through a free downloadable augmented reality app, OverTime offers educational, self-guided tours of a public space by unearthing the multiple layers of history, meaning, and interpretation of that site through a personal smart device. Led by a virtual tour guide, the app opens an imagined outdoor art and history museum, so that users can access histories of an important street or intersection; explore stories and memories; and visualize new ways to access and share their own perspectives and knowledge of that site.

The first prototype tour will be released for public use at the iconic Art Museum steps hosted by renowned poet Ursula Rucker. OverTime illuminates stories through a living timeline, city sightlines, and a “new art history” of the Rocky statue. Each stop of the tour is guided by an open research question: What has happened here? What can you see from here? What does this statue mean to you? Through the app, Monument Lab will gather visitors’ observations and make those reflections accessible through its website. Built with Philadelphia-based technologists Dream Syndicate, OverTime optimizes socially-distanced outdoor engagement by offering the option to engage on site at the steps, or off-site for accessibility and public health purposes.

OverTime was made possible through a generous grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and was produced in partnership with the Center for Public Art and Space at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design.