Talismans of Self, developed by artist Gordon Beattie and Sydney based developer Warren Armstrong as part of Bega’s Festival of the Face has added a brighter layer of reality on landmarks around town.

“We’ve created an environment you can step into and the talismans sit in the natural landscape,” Mr Beattie said.

The three-dimensional images were initially designed to be printed using a 3D printer at Bega’s CoWS Near The Coast co-working space.

“What I had were some three-dimensional designs with the possibility of printing the talismans to create a souvenir for the festival,” he said.

“It is really just an experiment.”

Mr Beattie, who is also deputy chair of the South Coast Regional Tourism Organisation, said he is inspired by the potential of augmented reality in the tourism sector and is surprised by the widespread popularity of the Pokemon application.

“I think it’s really interesting,” Mr Beattie said.

“This is a corporation doing it world wide on a large scale.

“It is a great example of what can be done with augmented reality.”

The pair have worked together previously with Mr Armstrong designing the Phantom Fleet for the recent Eden Whale Festival.

“It runs on the Layar app which was invented by a Dutch company in around 2010,” Mr Armstrong said.

“I set up a website where Gordon creates his models or talismans and gives them locations.”

The developer is also impressed with the popularity of Pokemon Go, although he says he saw it coming.

“It is pretty impressive that it took off as quickly as it did,” he said.

“The technology has been around for a while and was just waiting for a good selling point.

“Pokemon has the nostalgia element to it and everyone these days has smart phones so I’m not really surprised it has taken off like it has.”

Talismans can be found all across Bega by first downloading the Layar application and searching for Talismans of Self.