AHA! (Augmented Heritage Adventure)
Team
Name: Charisse Foo
Nationality: Singapore
Institution / Company: Cornell University
Name: Yichen Jia
Nationality: China
Institution / Company: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cornell University
– FINALIST of REVIVING MINES: SHANDONG PARK Competition
Magical stories of talking animals, immortals, demons, and deities come to life through augmented reality. AHA! (Augmented Heritage Adventure) revives the famed Qing Dynasty work of Zichuan- born writer Pu Songling: Liaozhai Zhiyi, or Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. Pu Songling’s residence has been preserved as a tourist attraction, and now his 500 fantastic tales find new life in a gamified augmented reality adventure.
Holograms of fantastic creatures interact with visitors, courtesy of GPS-enabled smart watches, enchanting the physical landscape: a tiger spirit prowls in the woods, a tipsy turtle prince languishes near the waterfall, and a talking fox breaks forth into charming conversation. Outdoor enthusiasts and digital natives alike will delight in Zichuan’s vast natural and virtual landscape. Caving, hiking, and climbing trails weave through digital checkpoints, and holographic characters accompany canoeists through a quarry-turned-lake. A traditional crafts academy pairs local craftsmanship with cutting-edge technology, intertwined with virtual reality instruction, hologram projectors, and digital fabrication. Empty mines are converted into sustainable and luxurious cave hotels; restaurants feed hungry stomachs and imaginations. As visitors converse with deities and marvel at exquisite local pottery through mixed-reality headsets, they are transported into a magical world. Reality will never be the same again.
#cultural heritage #augmented reality #digital #fantasy #preservation
