IMMERSIVEMOVING IMAGE
PHOTO
DESIGN
The Secret Garden
Augmented Reality Game
In her book Staying with the Trouble, Donna Haraway maintains that “decisions must take place somehow in the presence of those who will bear their consequences”. Our activities affect not only the starling population but also their behaviour. We believe that we are responsible for shaping the conditions for more-than-humans to flourish and that entails respecting the autonomy of ecosystems and non-human life. Through our project, we aim to communicate these urgent issues by inviting our audience to embody a starling and indulge in play.
ToolsLens Studio, Unity, Blender, Ableton &
Adobe Suite
The Experience
Graduate Showcase, Royal College of Art, 2024
Graduate Showcase, Royal College of Art, 2024
Graduate Showcase, Royal College of Art, 2024
Project Development
Early-stage research and ideation for The Secret Garden
Along with secondary research, we also worked closely with scientists and ecologists from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the British Trust for Ornithology, and their insights were essential in helping us develop our project. Our conversations with them revealed that the decline in starlings is mainly due to pesticides and fertilisers harming their main prey, leatherjackets. RSPB also found that starling numbers increase when farmers use more environmentally friendly practices.
Concept sketches and storyboard frames
Concept sketches and storyboard frames
The main play is centred on foraging for leatherjackets, the starling's natural prey. The visitor searches for larvae and taps to retrieve them. A successful attempt removes the leatherjacket from the scene, while an unsuccessful attempt turns it red. By the end, the user discovers why: they are not alive.
The visitor is also encouraged to wander and explore the environment. There are optional touchpoints placed throughout the garden that dive deeper into species knowledge.
Methodology
The garden’s invisibility in the physical world mirrors the decline of starlings in urban environments. AR as a technology enables us to deliberately reveal what is becoming increasingly difficult to notice in familiar surroundings. It also allows unrestricted movement within real-world spaces, which is essential for the act of foraging.
In a game environment, a player easily accepts their new role as they start to think like the character that is assigned to them. The visitor learns through play as the interactivity encourages active participation. This way, the knowledge exists in the performance of the action.
Simulating bird vision was an essential component of the AR chapter so that the viewer could start thinking like a bird. Birds can see UV light. Theoretically, UV light has no colour, but the hues of violet (wavelength closest to UV light) have been used while texturing the assets to illustrate and make this spectrum visible to humans. The juxtaposition of the human spectral range and the larger spectral range of bird vision helps the visitor compare how a bird can see more than humans.
Sound Design
The use of spatial audio and UI sounds helps the user navigate the environment. Sounds of the starling’s birdsong and Mozart's piano are only triggered when the visitor goes close to these objects. This simulates real-world behaviour and adds another layer of interactivity.