Wish Mango Tree: hybrid experimentation and creation
Authors: Sampaio Valzeli 
Published: January 2022

This essay presents the process of creating the artistic project at augmented reality “Wish Mango Tree” is configured as a specific site / public intervention for installing in the georeferenced mango trees of the city of Belém a technological device for electronic labeling and the creation of a hollow steel plate at mango tree. This process involves experimentation and creation related to Visual Arts, Design and programming, experienced through a mobile application, being a physical hybrid intervention. “Wish Mango Tree” is inspired by the work “Wish Tree” , a series of art installations in process, started in 1981, by the Japanese artist, and member of the Fluxus group, Yoko Ono. She chooses a tree native to a place, or plants one under her guidance. The public is invited to tie a wish in writing and hang it on the tree. Yoko has already installed this work in some cities in the world. “Wish Mango Tree” proposes an action similar to the public and passers-by of the mango trees in Belém. The project promotes interaction between individuals: humans and mango trees. Digital content can be viewed in the augmented reality app at the site specific where mango leaf wishes can be accessed by anyone. “Mangueira Desejo” seeks to fill a gap or lack identified: the invisibility of mango trees, seeking to use technology to give visibility to a social and ecological problem. The political dimension of the project is revealed in giving visibility to the mango trees, activating the collective memory and provoking questions and commitments from the individuals involved: trees, people, and institutions. This artistic project aimed at experimentation and creation related to Visual Arts and Design, experienced through a mobile application. And evokes the affective memory of its participants, seeking to enhance, strengthen and maintain the identity and cultural memory of Pará through digital media. The project fits into the artistic and cultural area: Visual Arts, with the creation of proposals in the Visual Arts area, through the areas: installation, intervention mechanisms, specific site, urban art, digital art, new media, photography , being a hybrid proposal between art and digital design. In addition to addressing the experience of the visual arts in their technical, formal and conceptual reflections, of creation, diffusion, training and memory. In this sense, the project promotes creation, experimentation and design associated with a historical, social, cultural, sustainable and / or technological context, which can be translated into propositional actions that address graphic design, interactive media, web design/applications, design of games. The mango trees themselves are objects of public interest, the app invites everyone to “hang” their desires on the “Wish Mango Trees ”, promoting the transformation of the mango trees into a receptacle for the aspirations of the people who cross it. The app will promote remotely a network experience that triggers a physical experience in the main mango trees of the square, when approaching a mango tree to start the action, which will give visibility to the cloud of annotations at mango leaves through mobile app.