"The One and The Other" was an augmented reality poetry and art installation installed virtually over the permanent art collection in the Boise State University Student Union Building from February 14, 2014 through December 15, 2015.

The One and The Other consists of four, narratively linked poems that tell the story of two beings trying to connect with one another. The experience of the exhibit is a scavenger hunt of sorts. Using a smartphone, guests enter the exhibition using the Junio augmented reality browser in the Student Union Gallery space. Guests listen to the first poem which provides clues used to discover the corresponding art work in the gallery. Guests then scan the artwork to hear the next poem which provides clues to the next artwork and moves them through the story of “The One and The Other.” View artworks (presented with permission of the University Gallery coordinator).

The technology used to create this exhibit is called augmented reality. Using the Junaio augmented reality browser provides a layer of experience on top of the physical reality of the gallery—an augmented reality experience. Junaio sold their browser technology to Apple in May 2015 and Apple consumed the code into its iOS operating system. Apple shut down the browser on December 15, 2015 at which time the exhibition ceased to exist.

The Poems

I.

The red faced man stares silently from the end of the hallway.
The green book, a prism, refracts light through him.
His world moves slowly—stuck in that mathematical middle of nothing.
An infinity of “loves me” extends one direction.
“Loves me not,” the terrible thought, extends the other.

II.

The One and The Other stand in front of one another
behind bird masks in a play of inbetweeness.
“All the world's a stage” but not all black and white—
the yellowing pages of a book,
the red of the blood between its pages.

III.

The heart, an organ of life and love, body and being,
floats detached in landscapes of liver and bile,
“loves me” and “loves me not.”
The One wants for blood, The Other for love.
The grass that grows green in spring feeds us in fall.

IV.

And now we stand in front of ourselves,
The One and The Other,
exposed to the everything that surrounds us—
time that proves the physical is ephemeral,
that love has no beginning and no end.