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WYSIWYG

2026

mixed reality

A brass telescope with a circular wooden housing stands on a tripod against a warm desert sunset.

An augmented-reality telescope that brings imaginary creatures into the landscape.

A visitor sits on a small wooden bench and looks through WYSIWYG in an open desert setting.

WYSIWYG hides a phone inside a familiar viewing instrument. Looking through the eyepiece, visitors encounter animated birds, animals and towering figures within the camera's view of their surroundings. Turning the telescope lets them explore this other layer of the landscape.

By day, the flock appears as black birds. At night, it becomes a swarm of lights. Giant figures made of particles walk through the landscape. The concept image below brings the birds and walking figures into one of my photographs.

A visitor looks through the brass telescope at dusk, seen from behind with its wooden housing and tripod in view.
Concept image of the telescope at sunset, with two towering cyan and violet particle figures walking on the open sand in front of the camp and a flock of virtual birds crossing the sky.

These recordings come directly from the software: the flock in daylight and at night, the walking figures and a herd of animals.

The physical construction combines a brass telescope, a wooden tripod and a circular housing for the phone. The enclosure holds the screen in the telescope's line of sight, so looking at a digital image becomes a physical gesture: sit down, lean in and turn towards something.

A close view of the telescope's stepped wooden housing, brass tube and tripod, with coloured lights out of focus across the desert.
The opened circular wooden housing reveals the phone and its round landscape view beside the telescope.
The wooden front of the telescope has a sun motif and a round opening for the phone's camera.
A close view along the brass telescope towards its eyepiece, with grass and trees behind it.
Rose Hallgren's wooden bench stands in the desert in warm evening light, with curved cutouts in its legs and a scalloped edge beneath the seat.
A close view of the bench's plywood seat and rounded upright, secured with a wooden peg.
A visitor sits on Rose Hallgren's wooden bench overlooking the desert hills at sunset, seen from behind.
A view down onto the bench's plywood seat, showing its curved cutouts, wooden pegs and long evening shadows.
A visitor wearing headphones looks through the telescope as the sun sets over the landscape.

The instrument travelled between the open desert and a wooded setting during July 2026.

I built the software using WebAR and Three.js. Rose Hallgren designed and built the wooden bench.

A close view along the brass telescope towards its circular wooden housing and the setting sun, with two visitors sitting in the distance.