ANCHORBALL: A Curious Art Journey is an immersive experience being presented at the Royal Botanical Garden in Hamilton, Ontario this summer. The experience comes with a fun narrative to explore, alongside whimsical characters that add to the aesthetic. The sculptures even get up to 12 feet tall, so there’s no squinting required as you get to see the details up close and personal. Another interesting addition is the digital aspect. There is a hidden world to discover within the realm of augmented reality, so when you’re done enjoying the physical form, you can head to cyberspace and listen to audio reflections from the artist as well as dive deep into the lore of the characters that populate that world. 

As a lover of nature, adventure, and nearly anything that draws on the imagination, it’s a no-brainer that Anchorball would pique my interest. The sculptures are arranged so seamlessly with the landscape that they seem like they’re meant to be there, not just as an exhibit, but naturally. I can see kids rushing to get closer to the Venus Aurora Floralis Bubblegum Girl sculpture in an effort to mimic the perfect bubble she’s blowing, or some of the kids throwing up the peace sign with Bunni B. This is an unparalleled experiment in vibrant colours, mystical characters, the beauty of Botanical Gardens, and the freedom of escaping our phones for just a few hours; until you learn that you might have to use your phone to enhance some aspects of this exhibit. 

Anchorball also includes six phone-friendly augmented reality pieces as a gesture to appeal to those who simply can’t do without a digital interface, and I love the idea, but I can’t help but think about it being a slight compromise in the grand scheme of things. I’m getting notifications from apps that don’t add too much value to my life every minute of the day. Someone liked my Instagram post from a few weeks ago? Cool. Oh look, an email for a coupon from the local deli! Amazon is reminding me about the books in my cart. Swell. I may get all of these messages while roaming the garden, but I should be present, right? Some brilliant artist has crafted this experience that requires my attention. Everything is right in front of me, after all! Well, using your phone to snap a few pictures is one thing, but being encouraged to use my phone to view other structures and characters seems a bit puzzling. We finally managed to get people outside and absorbed in the beauty of an incredible garden-exhibit, and now they have an option to use (objectively) the most distracting thing we own in this day and age as a lens to view other things that are now not physically in front of them. The last thing I’d personally want to do is to pull my phone out to do this while I’m at the garden and being a part of the experience. I would want to snap a quick photo or two, and then take in all the literature about the world of these characters. 

Our phones have helped us connect in ways that we may have never thought possible a few decades ago. For a large portion of the world, it's uncommon for us to NOT be connected in some shape or form. We’re on our phones for hours a day, and for some of us, we absolutely require that connection to do our jobs. Connection. That is the one thing that Jeremy Freiburger (RBG’s Program Development Lead) and Ken Kelleher (Creator of ANCHORBALL) were able to hone in on for this exhibit. They understood the fact that people would be happy to be outside, but they also understood the fact that some individuals grew up around and are way more in-tune with the digital aspect of things—so why not cater to both worlds? This would result in a fun experience that can be enjoyed by all ages and all backgrounds. I understand that thinking, and I get the impulse to cater to all comers. I just wish more exhibits would commit to this effort to connect with each other—and with the natural world—by disconnecting from our phones. That said, the augmented reality component of this exhibit is totally optional, and the purists such as myself can use this as a reason to forget about our phones for a few hours. At any rate, I’ll be making my way to ANCHORBALL before it closes on September 20, and I’ll keep my phone in the car, and I’ll instead ask a friendly bystander to take a photo of me with the Kung Pao sculpture.