.ART Award 2026 / illust. AR Grant application
Your mind is your sanctuary.
A narrated live performance bringing original music, animated worlds and augmented reality into a journey through life, death and the imagination.
For 2027, I propose coding new live-performance capabilities into Illust and presenting a 30–45-minute set in New York. The development will connect image-target AR scenes with musical cues and audio response, using The AttaBotty Experience as its first testing ground. Afterward, a free public exhibition will give the artworks another life beyond the performance.
Moving image: Hands to God, an existing AR work by ATTABOTTY
02Project narrative
I began making music because I had a story to tell. It came from learning to become steadier in myself, to welcome life without needing to hold everything in place. “Your mind is your sanctuary” grew out of that experience. For me, sanctuary is a way of meeting the world with greater openness, even when the world remains difficult.
I wanted the music to carry that feeling further, so I began creating animated visuals. Graphic design and graphic art drew me into filmmaking, animation and 3D. Experimentation and commissioned work expanded my craft, eventually bringing my creations into physical spaces through augmented reality.
The AttaBotty Experience brings those possibilities together. Through music and narration, the performance moves through life, death, uncertainty and the search for inner sanctuary. AR gives the imagined world a visible presence within the room. A scene can surround the performer, emerge beside the audience or transform as the music reaches a turning point. What was hidden becomes something we can encounter.
The name carries an echo of “out-of-body experience.” My own experiences of going inward have strengthened my appreciation for being in my body and participating in life. That return is central to the performance. I want the journey through unfamiliar spaces to bring people back with a renewed awareness of the world they already inhabit.
After the live event, selected works will take another form as a public AR collection in the host city. The performance ends, but there is somewhere to revisit its images and ideas, at a different pace and in the company of everyday life.
03The audience encounter
Approximately five or six tracks, connected by narration, will form a continuous 30–45-minute performance. Music, live instruments, light and animation establish the journey. At selected moments, AR extends that world into the space around the audience.
Ticket holders will open the experience through a QR code. Images within the stage visuals will reveal and anchor the associated AR scenes. Musical cues will trigger significant changes, while audio-reactive elements introduce movement within those scenes.
Dragon Charmer offers one example of the many scene ideas I am developing: a projected dragon’s cave extended through AR, with a dragon and fire appearing around the stage. Across the performance, different tracks will introduce their own environments and transformations, shaped by the music and narration. Each augmented scene will serve the larger story, changing with what the audience hears and experiences.
Audiences can enter the augmented scenes at designated moments and lower their phones to return to the performance. The production will remain a complete audiovisual experience for people who choose not to use AR.
04What will be developed
I propose expanding Illust’s platform with code that connects image-target scenes, musical cues and audio-reactive behavior. The AttaBotty Experience will serve as the first production used to develop and test these capabilities, with the aim of making them available to other artists as features within Illust itself.
Image targets reveal and anchor the relevant scenes as the stage imagery changes.
Timed cues trigger transformations, bursts, scene transitions and returns to earlier visual states at chosen musical moments.
Audio-reactive elements translate selected properties of the sound into movement within the scene.
With development access and technical coordination from Illust, I will begin with one musical passage before extending the system across the set. Testing will address target recognition, scene changes, timed events, device performance and re-entry after interruptions.
The contribution will include tested code and technical documentation, with review, integration and release coordinated with the Illust team.
05The public collection
After the performance visits a city, I propose leaving a free outdoor AR collection at a suitable publicly accessible location. Each artwork will represent a track, adapted from its role within the live performance into a piece that can be encountered independently.
I think of the collection as the settled ashes of the experience: something remaining after an event that cannot be repeated in quite the same way. Visitors can return to its imagery at their own pace. People who never attended the performance can discover it for themselves.
The first exhibition is proposed for New York in summer 2027. Its location and display period will be arranged with a suitable host. Subsequent performances could establish related collections in other cities.
In the city
The AttaBotty Experience website will list active, upcoming and archived exhibitions, with locations, directions, access hours and AR launch links. Ticket holders will receive the exhibition details through the performance. Social campaigns and requested promotional support from Illust will introduce it to wider audiences.
Discovery
Where permitted and financially feasible, approved QR signage will help passersby discover the collection. Signage will support a discovery system that also works through the website and digital promotion.
At home
An at-home edition is also proposed, adapting selected works to a visitor’s own space. The city edition will retain compositions designed around its surroundings. On the website, people will be able to preview the works, then open supported AR experiences through a direct mobile link or scan a QR code from another screen.
06Long-term care
Hosting
I will maintain the collection through Illust and seek a hosting arrangement that extends beyond the grant’s included account period. A portion of performance proceeds is intended to support a reserve for hosting, exhibition maintenance, promotion and approved signage. The allocation will be based on actual costs and income.
Archive
Original models, textures, animations, audio and deployment records will also be preserved in my own archive with separate backups. The online collection will retain documentation and access information when a physical exhibition changes or ends.
Provenance
I intend to explore Illust’s Web3 infrastructure for provenance and records linking the works to place. Continued viewing will be supported by maintained hosting and preservation of the production assets, rather than assumed from minting alone.
07Plan and requested support
New York, where I am based, is the proposed first presentation city. Development will move through five stages:
Finalize the musical sequence, narration and visual treatments.
Prototype image-target scenes, timed cues and audio response with one passage.
Extend the tested capabilities across the set and rehearse in representative venue conditions.
Present the performance and document the audience experience.
Adapt and publish the public collection, then document the new capabilities for further development.
Technical
I am requesting development access to the relevant parts of Illust’s platform, together with technical coordination, code review and troubleshooting support. Grant support would give me time to develop and test the infrastructure needed for the performance, with the intention of contributing reusable capabilities to the platform.
Presentation
I would also welcome assistance identifying a venue and public exhibition host, coordinating site approval, preparing suitable signage, and reaching audiences through marketing, advertising and press. Production and setup support would help move the work from rehearsal into a first public presentation.
Funding
Additional funding would support artist development time, rehearsal access, technical crew, equipment, documentation and the ongoing care of the collection. Delivery will be scaled to the resources secured.
08Impact
I will assess participation through ticket sales and attendance, visits to the collection where reliable figures are available, and audience-created posts and shares associated with the project.
An optional feedback prompt will ask whether the AR deepened the story and how people experienced the connection between the music and the physical setting. Rehearsal records will document scene recognition, cue behavior and recovery from interruptions.
Together, these observations will inform future performances, the continuing exhibitions and the capabilities intended for other creators.
09Completed original work
The proposal builds on a practice of creating and exhibiting animated AR artworks. These completed pieces show the visual development, animation and spatial production behind the next stage of The AttaBotty Experience.
Case study
Presented in Echoes of Freedom at Liberty State Park, Sanctuary is part of a year-long public AR exhibition. The Balanced Forces curatorial team issued a certificate recognizing my participation.
Sanctuary combines models I created by hand with Meshy-generated elements, brought together into the finished composition.
Blender production views, not final renders or on-site AR photographs.
Curator’s Choice Award
Hands to God received the Curator’s Choice Award from Balanced Forces for ARtivism, presented during SXSW in Austin in March 2026.
I modeled the arm, built its rig, and animated its movement by hand, down to the individual finger joints. I then composed those articulated forms into the finished work, carrying out the modeling, texturing, rigging and animation myself.
MoCA L.I.ghts 2026
Crystal Stream was exhibited at MoCA L.I.ghts 2026 in Patchogue, New York.
Crystal Stream combines a looping procedural animation, developed through a custom engine I built with coding assistance from Claude, with original sound design I created in FL Studio. The sound begins when the AR experience is activated.
10Collaboration and production
For .ART’s MASK — A Portal Between Identities, presented at ICANN87 in Bali in October 2026, I developed 3D adaptations and AR activations from commissioned artists’ designs through Illust.
The featured works are Flora Face by João Peixinho, Frenatus by Özlem Mehder and Computational Theory of Mind by Claudia Tong. My contribution brought the designs into 3D and prepared them as working AR experiences, with animation and optimization as appropriate to each piece.
The project reflects a part of my practice that also informs this proposal: understanding the intent of an artwork, preserving its authorship, and making it function in a new medium.
11Biography
William Stewart is a New York-based artist, musician and creative technologist whose practice spans music, animation, 3D production and augmented reality. He began creating animated visuals for his music and developed a wider practice through graphic design, filmmaking, original artwork and commissioned production.
His AR work is featured in year-long exhibitions at a museum in Mesa, Arizona, and in Echoes of Freedom at Liberty State Park, overlooking the Statue of Liberty. He also exhibited at MoCA L.I.ghts 2026 in Patchogue, New York. He received the Curator’s Choice Award from Balanced Forces for Hands to God at ARtivism, presented during SXSW in 2026. Through Illust, he developed 3D/AR adaptations for .ART’s MASK exhibition in Bali, and in July 2026 taught an Illust course connecting AI-assisted workflows, 3D production and AR.
He is developing The AttaBotty Experience to bring music, narration and spatial imagery into a live performance exploring imagination, mortality and inner sanctuary.
12Supporting records
Organizer announcement
MoCA L.I.ghts 2026 augmented reality experience, naming ATTABOTTY among its artists
Patchogue Arts Council · Instagram
Organizer spotlight
Artist spotlight on Sanctuary at Liberty State Park
Trish Gianakis · Instagram reel
Exhibition coverage
University news summarizing Jersey City Times coverage of the Liberty State Park public art project
Saint Peter’s University
Exhibition announcement
MASK — A Portal Between Identities, ICANN87, Bali
.ART · Instagram
Press release
.ART presents MASK — A Portal Between Identities, an augmented reality exhibition at ICANN87 in Bali
.ART via EIN Presswire
A live journey, a collection rooted in the city, and works that can be revisited at home. The AttaBotty Experience brings these encounters together around the same invitation: to explore inward, then return to the world with greater appreciation for being here.
Open the works in AR
Contact William
