The Digital Resurrection of Place: Walking the Future Arts Way

In the heart of Seattle, where glass towers rise above historic streets and the pace of technological change continues to accelerate, a new kind of public infrastructure is taking shape, one built not from concrete, but from augmented reality, digital storytelling, and ancestral memory.

Launching with a public opening ceremony at Pacific Science Center’s newly free to the public courtyard on Tuesday, June 23 at 6 p.m., Future Arts Way: OTHER EARTH 2026 invites Seattle residents and visitors to experience a 2.5-mile interactive digital arts trail stretching from the Pacific Science Center arches to King Street Station’s clocktower. Arriving during the global spotlight of the 2026 World Cup, the project asks an important question: What happens when technology helps us reconnect to a place instead of disconnect from it?

A city street corner with a large building, street sign, and surreal, digitally altered elements like floating plants and distorted water in the foreground, blending touches of science-inspired details for a futuristic feel.

An interactive AR trail.

Photo courtesy of Future Arts Way

Through more than 35 augmented reality experiences accessed by scanning QR codes embedded in sidewalk decals known as AR Drops, participants will encounter large-scale digital artworks layered directly onto the city’s landscape. Standing at Third Avenue and Pine Street, visitors will witness a towering ethnobotanical waterfall flowing from a skybridge, blooming with Coast Salish and African plants. Elsewhere, Coast Salish histories, ancestral knowledge, and visions of possible futures emerge through a smartphone screen, transforming familiar streets into living portals of memory and speculative futurisms.

Curated under the theme OTHER EARTH 2026, the project centers artists whose perspectives have historically been “othered” from conversations about land, technology, and urban development. At its foundation is a collective of Coast Salish artists and storytellers representing nine Tribal communities, including those whose ancestral homelands encompass present-day downtown Seattle. Their work explores Indigenous food systems, salmon migration routes, and ecological stewardship, while neighboring artworks offer Afrofuturist, immigrant, and community-rooted visions of Seattle.

On June 23, join the artists, community partners, and civic and cultural leaders as Seattle gathers to celebrate the launch of a new digital district and future of public art.