Project Description
Imagining Aroused is an interactive, augmented reality (AR), a 25’ tall animated sculpture with several water features, including a fountain with instruments and music. It’s a monument and cultural symbol designed to celebrate the economic development in West Baltimore. As one wears the AR headmout, the fountain is visible on whatever backdrop is available. The goal is to inspire a commission to build this celebratory monument permanently in the heart of the Penn-North community for permanent display.
Through a headset, one sees multiple waterfalls, horns animate with music, and a 25’ tall, monument to the economic community-centered sustainability of West Baltimore. As one looks up at its scale, “Imagining Aroused” is a celebration that inspires a sense of empowerment.
Significance
Associate Professor of Economics at Lafayette College, Gladstone Hutchinson observed a phenomenon in distressed national and international communities where external developers and influencers invested in and defined communities without learning the identities of the people living and working there. These communities ultimately failed economically because the developers’ objectives were never aligned with the community.
To wrestle with this problem, Hutchinson founded EEGLP to document and implement a better economic theory he learned from coal towns of Kentucky, Honduras, Jamaica, and New Orleans.
To implement a solution, Professor Hutchinson teamed up with Donald Harris and West Baltimore community organizers to create the Arch Community Network and implement a new economic plan for West Baltimore based on EEGLP. The goal was to develop a product that established a culture of entrepreneurship from the community’s own vision and control. Hutchinson believed that for communities to be successful, they must build on the assets already at work. He called this trust capital, a necessary element for building the social capital needed for business and other economic developments to thrive. By turning Arch Community Network’s ideas into a clear visual sculpture, the project invites West Baltimore residents to use their own strengths and build through a cooperative and inclusive process to achieve a modernized, competitive, and sustainable path to prosperity.
The sculpture is a community collaboration that is a symbol of economic development in West Baltimore, designed and envisioned by West Baltimoreans. Each element of the monumental fountain turns ideas into forms: the pool of water embodies history. Floating forms signal cultural activity; the copper spiral mesh is a network of community trust. Cubes transform from the mesh and community trust, while horn elements announce new innovations.
Methods
For over eighteen months, IRC researchers studied EEGLP theory, distilled it into a visual narrative, and prototyped a responsive virtual sculpture. Students from Lafayette, Coppin State, and Morgan State examined local culture and mapped organizational networks to shape the artwork’s design and interaction.
The final outcome is a 3D-animated, augmented-reality, interactive monument created in Unreal Engine and displayed on a Meta Quest 3 headset. Project Direction was led by Lee Boot, with Hutchinson of Lafayette College serving as the collaborating economist. Creative production was carried out by Ryan Zuber, who created the modeling and animation, and Tristan King, who directed the interactive programming.
Students played a central role in modeling, animation, and development: Fahmida Hossain and Liza Aleinokova (Graduate Students, Intermedia and Digital Art), Christina Lukaszczyk (Undergraduate, Visual Arts and Computer Science and Electrical Engineering), and Iman Asfari and Vivian Yeh (Undergraduates, Visual Arts).
Funding + Outcomes
Presented at the “Imagining America” Conference, 2023.
Exhibited at “ArtScape Festival”, August 2024, Baltimore MD.
Presented at the Engineers Club in the Culture of Cooperation, October in 2025, Baltimore MD.
$25,000, Lafayette College
Researchers and Creators
Art and Project Direction: Lee Boot, Director, IRC
Modeling and Animation: Ryan Zuber, Technical Director, IRC
Interactive Programming: Tristan King, Lead Developer, IRC
External Collaborators
Collaborating Economist: Gladstone (Fluney) Hutchinson, Associate Professor of Economics, Lafayette College
Community Organizers: Denise Griffin; John Harris; Marion Blackwell
Students
Modeling, Animation, Development:
Fahmida Hossain; Liza Aleinokova, Graduate Students, Intermedia and Digital Art, Department of Visual Arts
Christina Lukaszczyk, Undergraduate Student, Departments of Visual Arts and Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
Iman Asfari; Vivian Yeh, Undergraduate Student, Departments of Visual Arts