Interactive Telecommunications Thesis Project 2021
Untold Stories is an AR experience that aims to show the world that the Dominican Republic is more than pretty beaches and natural resources. It’s a country rich in cultural complexities and beautiful traditions. This journey will guide you through site specific stories belonging to the Dominican culture.
Role: Researcher, Designer, Developer, 3D Modeling and Animations
START
Questions I started with:
Is it possible to use world building for teaching?
What is it that holds people’s attention? Can it be measured and reproduced?
What makes people learn?
Is it possible to make uninteresting content interesting if put in the right context? How is this done?
What’s the psychological / cognitive process that triggers when attention is held and how can it be triggered purposefully?
Can curiosity be formulated?
What is it about physical space / activity / experience that helps people internalize concepts and can there be a “virtual” way of doing this?
INTRO
I was born and raised in the Dominican Republic, a country that people mostly know for the beautiful beaches but rarely recognize for its rich culture.
Our culture evolved over centuries with Spanish, African and native Taíno influences. However, many modern day Dominicans deny being a part of this mixed race and heritage. Many believe erroneously that all Taínos were eradicated by the Spanish colonizers and that the parts of our culture that are obviously of African influences are just Dominican and are celebrated as such.
While people celebrate the parts of Dominican culture that have influences of Taíno and African cultures, many don’t really understand their meaning or origins. They are painted as evil, witchcraft or paganism, which goes against the Catholic faith that was imposed by the Spanish and currently dominates the country. This fear of the unknown makes it hard to preserve these valuable parts of our identity. Many of the stories I researched for this project were unknown to me as a local. So how can we expect others to value our culture above our beaches when we ourselves are so willing to forget it?
GOALS AND METHODS
In order to help shift this perspective and surface these parts of Dominican identity I decided to unveil the stories and historical facts that have been neglected either purposefully due to fear and ignorance or accidentally by assimilating colonial doctrines.
I chose an Augmented Reality experience so I could unveil the past, allowing forgotten history, culture, and places to become interactive with the modern world in an engaging way. The only way these stories have survived is through oral tradition. My project allows for a backdoor entrance into the culture.
PROCESS
I started my process by researching a lot about games and virtual spaces and how they’re being used to teach in all levels of academia. I tested many tools and games like Second Life, Minecraft and FlowScape and researched psychological theories on learning and the flow of creativity.
OBSTACLES: One big obstacle in this process was the lack of information readily available. Many of these stories aren’t written down anywhere nor are they accurately remembered by modern day Dominicans. The other obstacles where my level of proficiency in developing using Unity.
I looked into successful AR games like Pokemon Go and games that had similar flows to my intended experience like Persian Nights. Pokemon Go provided inspiration for dynamic item collection in Augmented Reality. Persian Nights is built around rewarding exploration and puzzle-solving to accomplish goals. This helped me form a foundation to design and build connections between objects and the environment.
I wanted to create a format that could be played actively or passively and for that all the stories needed to be connected via interactions with characters or objects. User-friendly puzzles allowed for a more approachable format, and basic tech interactions like clicking and dragging opened the activity to all ages while aiding user concentration on content.
In this journey the visitors walk to popular tourist locations and European structures to interact with and meet characters from Dominican myths and learn their stories as well as their meanings in our culture. At some locations they will solve puzzles related to Dominican culture to get objects that will lead them and give them access to new locations. This sticks close to the original user flow I imagined.
Because my project has a huge scope I decided to start small and create one direct user journey with interconnecting stories located in La Zona Colonial, or The Colonial Zone. La Zona Colonial is the oldest part of the capital city of Santo Domingo and includes some of the oldest structures made by Europeans still standing in America. Many tours take place in the area and it is also one of the places in the city where you can walk easily from place to place.
For the prototype, I concentrated on important landmarks in the area where research revealed interesting stories. The next step was to connect those separate stories with good pacing and consistent interactions.
The current user journey starts almost in the center of the Colonial Zone at the corner of the streets Hostos and Las Mercedes. Here, the visitor learns about the Dominican National Flower, La Rosa de Bayahíbe or the Bayahibe Rose, and the origins of the name. Bayahibe is a Taíno word used in modern days. At the end of the interaction the visitor has the option to collect a flower from the branch to plant at location #2 and gain access to the story there.
Whereas on location #3 the user must solve a puzzle while listening to the story of the person that figures on the image. He is an important Taíno rebel in Dominican history and the namesake of the hotel the user is in during this experience.
I developed the puzzles using Unity and had to start with simple shapes because I was new to it but I managed to achieve the design I wanted.
Solving the puzzle will grant the user access to the next item which guides them to location #4.
On location 4 the visitor walks to an old church called the Convent of Dominican friars where they interact with a new story. Many parts of my project consist of rebuilding virtually things that used to exist as a form of protest to the erasure of these stories. This is one of the examples: a story about a wall that was said to exist here but was torn down because it involved a sinister mystery.
This interaction ends with a call to action to follow a character of folklore to the next location.
The next puzzle takes place at Location 5 after we place the statue of an African rebel in a place where there used to be a whipping pole through the experience. I wanted this to have an impact on the visitor because this location is actually behind the famous first cathedral of the Americas and I wanted them to see it in a different light as well as remember the people that had to fight for their freedom from the people who built this monument.
The object recovered through the puzzle leads you to Location 6 which is the old shipyard where the Spanish used to dock.
The next puzzle, on location 7, was also designed and developed using Unity. This particular experience happens near the wall that used to be the colonial city limits and after you listen to a story. The objects recovered with this puzzle are useful in the next two locations.
The experience ends at the beach called Playa de Montesinos with a story some locals might now. Where we encounter another creature of myth called La Ciguapa. This creature can resemble a beautiful woman with long hair that covers the length of her body or a horrendous creature. She is hard to catch because following her footprints is almost impossible since her feet are pointed in the opposite direction. Something that in ancient traditions is supposed to signify death or entry into the land of no return.
TESTING
I tested the stories, pace, ambience and interactions using a prototype I made on Eko Studio. It starts with an intro explaining how the Dominican culture developed and what the current problem is.
It then goes on to show mockups of the AR experience at each point of my user journey. Essentially, it’s a low-fi, virtual version of my AR experience. I used Google Earth to map the trajectory and Eko to make the button interactions simulating the real-life decisions the visitor would make.
The prototype runs through the whole condensed user journey. I got valuable feedback on flow and ambiance from this and managed to get high resolution footage from the sites to replace the Google Earth recording.
EXPLORATIONS
This project threw me into an intense learning sprint on 3D modeling and animation. I tried multiple ways of modeling like sculpting and scanning, modeling from images and following tutorials. I also tried learning Maya, Blender and Mudbox but ultimately stuck to Cinema 4D as my main software.
AR Explorations
