Jonas Johansson (b. 1987) is a designer, artist and educator from Glommen, Halland. He studied graphic design in Norrköping, Reims, and Stockholm, and has worked at design studios in Tokyo, Montreal, London and Munich. He taught at Beckmans (2017–2025) and Hyper Island (2014–2022).
Jonas runs the artist residency Visualia and Nordic Audiovisual Artists, plans courses at Svenska Tecknare, creates events with PLX and Lumen Project, collaborates with the lighting collective Svartljus, and co-founded Dome Dreaming, the Nordics' first fulldome film festival.
He shares his studio with SMASH and Rose Hallgren.
Eastern City Portal
A hybrid sculpture and augmented reality portal for the streets of London.
Eastern City Portal was a public artwork on Camomile Street in the City of London, commissioned by Scarlett Entertainment. Created together with Erik Schmitz, the piece was a continuation of an installation at Nowhere, where we built a large wooden crack in the fabric of reality. Looking through it, visitors would see into a lush walnut garden, in contrast to the dry sandy landscape of Monegros. For this commission we developed the concept further into a sculpture that doubled as an AR experience. Passersby could point their phone at it and see the street transformed.
Carved from sustainably sourced timber, the sculpture was shaped as a gateway, its outline roughly following the shape of London. The wood was CNC carved and painted with patterns designed to guide the augmented reality experience, acting as markers for the three-layered design.
I like these kinds of pieces, where digital techniques meet sculpted wood and people can interact with both.
Getting the carved patterns to read as AR markers took the most tuning, so the three layers landed when you raised your phone.
