Welcome to The Bleach Packers AR experience.
Click on the map to help you find each location in the real world. When you’re at the location of the map-pin, press it to view an augmented reality character. (available from 12th of January)
Locations (Widnes):
Spike Island
Cronton College
Widnes Market
Locations (Runcorn):
The Brindley
Under the 2 bridges
Trident shopping centre (by Cineworld)
About AR
AR is Augmented Reality. We superimpose images over the top of your phone’s camera picture to make it look as though they are placed in the real world.
Download the AR experience, by tapping on the link provided by the map pin. Then, hold your phone up so you can see the world through the screen and then move around until you can see our AR object, an aparition from the past.
Your phone, or other mobile device is amazing: it will download the AR experience from the internet, and then provide readings from its compass, orientation and location sensors so the scene is drawn in the right place, to provide the illusion of walking around an object.
Because the AR experience is downloaded from the internet, your phone should ask you for permission to let it access all of these capabilities. Expect it to pop up a few questions before you’re able to continue.
About the Bleach Packers
Young people in Halton have re-imagined iconic workers from the borough’s past creating holographic video and augmented reality images.
The project was inspired by archive photographs of Bleach Packers, who were hard working heroes of the Widnes and Runcorn chemical industry, creating vital alkali for the UK and beyond. They packed bleaching powder into casks and protected themselves by wrapping their entire bodies in fabric and paper, hiding their eyes behind handcrafted goggles.
Through a series of creative workshops, lead artist Lou Chapelle collaborated with local creative practitioners and young people who live and study in Halton to create costumes, dance, poetry, and sound. The resulting video artwork enacts a surreal Bleach Packer’s dream, in which he finds himself transformed, torn between chemical and nature.
The Bleach Packers is part of the Celebrating Halton’s Heritage project which is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund as part of Halton’s Borough of Culture 2021 celebrations.
Created with collaborating artists:
film-maker Tim Brunsden
costume designer Rachael Prime
sound artist Wendy Smith
poet Louise Fazackerley
choreographer Sharon Graham
Augmented Reality Laurie Cooper at Rescue Station
And young people living or studying on Halton:
Dance, fashion, and music students from Cronton Sixth Form College
Young people from The Studio.
More information and behind the scenes available here.
