Aria Platform is a free app that lets you bring your favorite album covers to life, all while sharing it on TikTok.
The app uses augmented reality software to allow users to scan pictures, including magazine pages, artwork and covers of vinyl records, and from them create moving images and graphics. All users need is a smartphone.
"We wanted to add value to an object from the past, vinyl, with an original artistic contribution," said the app's co-founder, Manolo Turri, to Newsweek. "We reached out to the best motion designers in the world asking them to choose their favorite albums and create a short 'story' on it."
Aria Platform uses streaming to access the moving image rather than in-app, meaning a 4G or Wifi connection is needed.
The use of a database also means that not every image can be scanned. Instead, only ones that are on Aria Platform's database can be converted into augmented reality. Currently, it's a game of testing and trying to find out if an image will scan, as the app doesn't offer a definitive list of all that's available.
What this does mean is that numerous vinyl or CD covers can be used with the app. This makes the perfect basis for graphics inspired by your favorite music artworks. Classics like Michael Jackson's Thriller, The Beatles' Abbey Road and Bjork's Homogenic all produce mesmerizing graphics once scanned.
While newer favorites, including Lana Del Rey's Born to Die, Billie Eilish's Don't Smile At Me and The Weeknd's Starboy are also on the app's database. For an in-depth look at all the albums that Aria Platform is able to work with, and at the credits for the artists behind the graphics, @thiscover_ on Instagram shares continuous details as the project grows. Artists are able to pitch their ideas for an "experience" using Aria's website.
To use the app, which is available on both the App Store and Google Play Store, users simply open it and allow access to the smartphone's camera. The screen then becomes a camera, which needs to be hovered over the selected image to automatically become a movie version of itself.
Want to scan your favorite album but you don't have the hard copy? The app works on images of the covers too, and Aria Platform also has a testing page online, which can be used too.
The app's recording feature allows users to share their chosen graphics after, but the feature is currently only available on iOS devices. Aria Platform confirmed to Newsweek that it plans to add the feature to Android devices in, "a week or less."
This means iPhone users can post theirs on apps including TikTok, like @panickedpisces who shared the augmented reality version of their Fleetwood Mac vinyl. Posted on May 14, the video has since amassed over 390,000 views at the time of publication.
"What happened on TikTok in just one week was truly extraordinary," said Turri. "We have reached an incredible number of 350,000 users and more than 3.5 million views and an indescribable wave of enthusiasm."
However, Turri also told Newsweek that the new-found popularity of the app has caused "enormous costs," meaning they are now looking at new means of income for Aria Platform. "We are considering sponsorship or even a Kickstarter," he explained.
05/24/21 02:17 a.m. ET: This story was updates to include comments from Aria Platform's co-founder.
@panickedpisces The app is called ‘Aria The AR Platform’ !! #MAKEYOURMOVE #SipIntoSummer #fyp #foryou #vinyl #vinylrecords #fleetwoodmac
♬ original sound - lexi 🤠
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