When Blood Ties and Unties You: Graduation Project for Bachelor of Visual Art, Australian National University. Australian Capital Territory, 2021.
Photographs of the Graduation Show Installation. Photographed by Kris Kerehona, 2021.
This projects aim was to create a work that combined sociological research and interviewing with Augmented Reality and Street Art techniques to emphasise individual experience, identity, and voice.
Context
This project was made for the Australian National University Graduation Show. In lieu of COVID-19, the graduation show was moved entirely online. In response, the artist chose to adapt their project to a street art installation as an ‘outdoor gallery’ that could be accessed by the public. The resulting works combine Sociological research and interviewing with Augmented Reality and Street Art techniques. The works investigate a family’s multicultural social identity and relationship to Māori ethnicity. Intergenerational experiences are explored with interviews from multiple family members, and their stories are presented as audio soundtracks to be listened to within the AR app the audience can download. The artist aimed to combine their research disciplines of Sociology and Visual Art to create a work that effectively utilised both fields of communication.
Community Engagement Process (CEP) of Graduation Show Project
The first stage of this project was to Inform. The artist informed and sought permission from their supervisors and made informative contracts for the participants about the project, interview process, and what the audio would be used for. The artist secured the wall location to be used for the project.
The next stage of the project was to Consult. This was an important phase of the project as it involved open-ended sociological interviewing with each of the 5 participants. The interviews were kept open-ended to allow for the participants to organically discuss their cultural and social experience. These interviews were compiled into transcripts which were reviewed and referred to identify patterns, similarities, and feelings.
Please see below screenshots from the video interviews.
Screenshots of the video interviews with Kris, Brent, Delise and Whitney, 2021. Photographed by Faith Kerehona.
The next stage of the project was Co-Create. The sociological interviews created the audio soundtracks to be used in the Augmented Reality. Animations were made using After Effects by Adobe. These were compiled into the Artivive program. This meant that when an audience member who had downloaded the Artivive app held their phone up to the work, it would play the animations, sections of the interviews, and soundscapes through their phone.
The animation and audio registered in the 3D space of Artivive Bridge. Photographed by Faith Kerehona, 2022.
A demonstration of the Augmented Reality playing through a phone. Video by Kris Kerehona, 2021.
The final stage of this project was Empower. Each individual work has symbologies from Māori spirituality and personal family history. These symbologies were gathered through the interview process and integrated into the final works. The soundscapes from each artwork feature aspects of the interviewee’s story and lived experience combined with a natural Australian or New Zealand soundscape. The resulting artworks are individual stories and experiences, but are unified through familial times, shared experience, and belonging. At the Graduation Show, these works awarded the artist the Belco Arts Prize, a solo funded exhibition scheduled for latter 2023. Please see below videos of each Augmented Reality demonstration and the installation photographs.
Final images of installation. Photographed by Kris Kerehona, 2021.