How AR Is Transforming Culture, Art, and Community

Just like people, culture is always evolving, shaped by what we say, create, share, and celebrate. Now, with a huge part of our lives happening online, technology becomes a powerful tool for cultural expression.

Augmented Reality is at the center of this shift. And with advanced AR glasses on the horizon, its impact is only set to grow. From restoring historical landmarks to sparking viral TikTok trends, AR is transforming how we connect with the past, engage with the present, and imagine the future.

It makes culture more interactive, immersive, and accessible than ever before.

Preserving Heritage

Among immersive technologies, AR stands out for its ability to connect the digital and real worlds. Overlaying digital content over real-life locations, Augmented Reality enhances the interaction, without feeling disconnected from the physical world. This feature can revive landmarks that no longer exist, placing culture right where it belongs.

For example, Le Louvre Egypt Augmented recreates ancient Egyptian artefacts, allowing people to experience them within their original context. These experiences don’t just display history. They bring it back to life in ways that are engaging and memorable, lasting to witness despite the passing of time.

Reimagining Travel

As we mentioned in our Geolocation AR Filters article, Augmented Reality is revolutionizing how we explore cities, landmarks, and cultural hotspots. By blending digital art and history with physical locations, AR filters offer a new layer of discovery for tourists and locals alike.

From the Eiffel Tower to the National Gallery in London, tourists can experience enhanced storytelling, animations, installations, and artistic interpretations layered onto real-world places, making each visit more immersive and memorable.

Whether it’s taking a step into a painting, learning more about landmarks simply by pointing your camera at a building, or seeing iconic places transformed or even destroyed, Augmented Reality offers a new, innovative way to explore the world.

Education through participation

At the heart of Augmented Reality is direct user engagement: An element that has made it especially valuable in educational settings like museums and schools. By turning passive observation into active participation, AR transforms the way we explore culture.

Rather than simply reading about history, customs, art, or society from books or static displays, users can step into immersive stories and interact with cultural knowledge in a more dynamic, memorable way.

Getting involved directly in cultural experiences helps exhibitions stay in our memory. When people can interact with what they see, AR turns learning from passive watching into active exploration. This hands-on approach makes information easier to understand and remember, inviting visitors of all ages to connect with history, art, and traditions in a more dynamic, long-lasting way.

One example is Snapchat’s most recent collaboration with the Palace of Versailles. Visitors can unlock AR experiences throughout the museum’s official app, watching Baroque dances, learning their meanings, or even becoming a court dancer themselves. It’s education through participation.

Connecting Communities

While we often think of culture as something rooted in the past, it’s constantly evolving, and we’re all part of that process. By creating and sharing our experiences, we actively shape what culture looks like today. As online communities form around games, memes, music, internet slang, and more, a new kind of digital culture has emerged. One that connects people across the globe through shared references and moments.

With AR playing a major role across social platforms, it has become a universal tool for expression and connection, inviting users to actively participate in and contribute to this ever-evolving cultural landscape.

Whether it’s ranking TV characters, creating avatars, or using meme-style effects, AR makes it easy to join the conversation. Everyone with a phone can contribute to online culture in a way that feels personal and creative.

From Viral Trends to Active Participation

Among many advantages of Augmented Reality is the interactive format of the technology. Its goal is to directly engage users through easily accessible experiences that everyone can share on their feed without any barriers. Each trend that emerges online can quickly become something to experience, rather than just sharing or liking someone else’s video. Users become the centre of the conversation.

Whether it’s joining the Chill Guy meme or acting out Sylvanian Drama scenes, AR makes it easier to take part in viral culture. It lowers the barrier to entry and turns even the most shy viewers into Creators.

When AR Becomes the Culture

Some AR filters have become cultural icons in their own right. Take the Snapchat Dog Filter, for example—originally just a playful way to enhance selfies, it quickly became one of the most recognizable features of early social media. What started as a fun addition to content turned into a defining visual of the mid-2010s, symbolizing the early days of digital self-expression and the rise of online identity.

Today, the early Snapchat Lenses hold a nostalgic value for many users, often referenced as a throwback to a simpler, more carefree time in internet culture. Their lasting impact shows how AR effects can become more than just trends. They become generational references and shared memories, building our culture.

Even today, AR Creators are remixing those original effects with a nostalgic twist, and users are looking forward to trying those Experiences, proving how AR can create lasting cultural references.

(P.S. Dive into digital nostalgia and explore how online culture has evolved—our Throwback Challenge Tag lets you recreate iconic moments through AR.)

AR as Artistic Expression

Augmented Reality, while often seen as a fun and playful feature on social media, is also a powerful tool for artistic self-expression. For many Creators, AR offers a new kind of canvas, one that blends the physical and digital worlds.

By layering virtual elements onto real environments, artists can transform everyday spaces into immersive installations, reimagining how art is experienced and shared. Whether it’s through face filters, 3D objects, or geolocated experiences, AR opens up new creative possibilities that challenge traditional boundaries and invite audiences to interact with art in entirely new ways.

Projects like Meta Open Arts and interactive AR masks turn the user into part of the artwork, challenging traditional formats and expanding what art can be.

Keeping Culture Alive with AR

From museums to memes, AR bridges generations, communities, and platforms, making culture more interactive, inclusive, and alive. It transforms passive viewers into active participants, offering not just a glimpse into culture, but a meaningful role in shaping it. By putting the tools of cultural creation into the hands of anyone with a smartphone, AR empowers every user to become part of the story, contribute to our shared memory, and leave a mark on what culture becomes next.

Ultimately, AR reminds us that culture isn’t static—it’s constantly evolving. And now, more than ever, it’s something we can build together. One Lens, one story, one shared experience at a time.