MA Narrative Environments, Central Saint Martins (UAL)
Ideation, Research, Design, Project Management
2019
Location: London
Stakeholder: Charles Dickens Museum
External collaborators: Holborn Community Association, Holborn Media Arts Club (1A ARTS)
Goals: Young audience engagement, Museum Visibility, Young People, and Social Injustice
CHARLES WAS HERE
Augmented Reality Experience
Charles Was Here is a project made for the Charles Dickens Museum in collaboration with the young adults from the Media Arts Club in Holbourn. The museum wanted to engage a younger audience as well as to create something outside of the museum walls.
In collaboration with Holborn Media Arts Club, five short stories were developed, each one is linked to five different locations, chosen from the Dickens topography, places that he choose and mentioned in his books, places that existed then and we can still visit now, places that represent these social issues: Mecklenburgh Square, around Brunswick Gardens, Coram Fields, and The Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.
The five short stories are plotted in a Dickensian tone around justice and injustice. In order to gain young audience engagement (our target audience) an Augmented Reality (AR) experience was developed. The inspiration came from the fact that Charles Dickens used the latest narrative techniques of the time, journalism, as well serial short stories, to gain audience engagement.
The AR experience is in the form of a treasure hunt, via QR codes and interactive sound alerts on each location, where the audience can find stories and once they reach the museum, they enter an immersive room where they can write messages or different possible endings and interactively projected on the walls.
COLLABORATORS:
Rosa Pascual
Sowmini Suresh
Marina Eisenhauer
Lucy Kim
Chang Jiang
Exhibition teaser
Go through the visitor experience of Charles Was Here
Topography of Dickens around the area
Overlay of what the area currently looks like, and what it used to look like in the time of Charles Dickens.
Map depicting each stop along the AR game journey to the museum
AR game steps
How the AR game works
The project intervention in front of the Charles Dickens Museum
CONCLUSION
Benefits for the audience:
Young audience engagement via AR experience game
Playfulness in & around the park
Awareness of current social issues that young people face now
Encourage young audience writing and engaging with characters, stories, and issues
Benefits for the museum:
Encouraging young audience engagement
Raising awareness in the local area of the Museum existence
More Museum entries
Increasing Museum ticket sales
Encouraging young people to write, especially handwriting
Raising awareness of social issues then and now, especially for young people