A Place Between

I am the daughter of architects. I build stories like buildings. My thesis is an exploration of interactive 3D narratives, free of linear structure. With augmented reality, I created narrative building blocks.

The viewers appear to physically move the animations within the blocks. The structure of blocks begs for one to literally build a narrative. The faces within a single block allow for juxtaposition and opposition of different moments in the stories. Meaning changes based on how the blocks are arranged.

The snippets of stories shown relate to moments in my life. When I lost my father and my first newphew was born 7 months later, I thought a lot about what exists within and beyond this life. Where did this new life come from? Within this life there are so many different realities. When we access memories, we relive moments to continue past realities. When we have hopes and dreams, we project desires into a reality that has not happened.

Using AR software, I coded various kinds of media that I created (video, sound and images) to the black and white fiducial markers (think QR codes but more powerful). I laser cut acrylic blocks to contain the markers and frozen images on the faces as a way to capture time. Then I designed two platforms to place the blocks in front of a webcam — one representing life as we experience it moment to moment, and the other is a collection of memories, fears and hopes that live in our minds. Projected largely on the wall is the place between those worlds, translated as augmented reality. The two worlds unite in side by side projections on the wall, in the same way different realities all coexist in us.