Snapchat is planning to launch their new augmented reality art platform. The platform will feature art from pop artist Jeff Koons and other artists eventually will also have the opportunity to sign-up and have their art added to the platform.

The new AR feature is based on the technology from Cimagine, an Israeli AR startup that Snapchat acquired in December. The dancing hot dog is powered by a similar feature called World Lens’, that has received 1.5 billion views on Snapchat!

The leak of the news of this new AR feature came about when the TechCrunch news agency asked Snapchat regarding the rumour, and Snapchat responded with this “art.snapchat.com” URL with a countdown to 3PM eastern time today, over Central Park.

You can click the link to follow the countdown but unfortunately, the surprise has already been discovered by savvy readers who discovered a time hack to trick the site and reveal what will be launched, ruining Snapchat’s big surprise. The hack method has been disabled now so you can still follow the countdown on the link. Although the reveal is mostly ruined it may still be fun to keep an eye on the countdown to see what or if they add anything new.

Fundamentally, when users are nearby a Snapchat ART, they’ll see a special Lens and an indicator will direct them in the direction of the ART until they see it appear on their phone. The ART instalments will likely also be visible in the Snapmap so users can find one near them and view different pieces around the world.

Pop artist Jeff Koons is most famous for his giant balloon animal sculptures which will be used for Snapchats ART features initially. Installments will be available in New York, Chicago, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Toronto, Syndey, London, Paris and Rio de Janeiro. Other artists will also be able to sign up to have their art added to the platform as well. It will be important for other artists to get involved so these AR installments can be featured world-wide and not just in major cities.

Snapchat seems to have beaten Facebook in terms of an AR feature with this launch. Facebook has been planning its “pin augmented reality to real-world locations” for some time now but previews of the feature are on a much smaller scale to Snapchat’s massive instalments.

After Snapchats share prices hit a low in August, this ART launch could help reignite the social platform as user growth has recently slowed. Intense competition from Instagram Stories and Facebook caused damage to their user base and frequency but this fresh new feature could bring people back and even acquire new users with from this fun world-wide feature.

Similar to the madness that was Pokemon Go, if the launch goes well, it could get users running to these physical locations and users of all ages to download Snapchat to join in on the action too.

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