Whispering tales: using augmented reality to enhance cultural landscapes and Indigenous values

Abstract

Increasingly, our built and natural environments are becoming hybrids of real and digital entities where objects, buildings and landscapes are linked online in websites, blogs and texts. In the case of Aotearoa New Zealand, modern lifestyles have put Māori Indigenous oral narratives at risk of being lost in a world dominated by text and digital elements. Intangible values, transmitted orally from generation to generation, provide a sense of identity and community to Indigenous Māori as they relate and experience the land based on cultural, spiritual, emotion, physical and social values. Retaining the storytelling environment through the use of augmented reality, this article extends the biophysical attributes of landscape through embedded imagery and auditory information. By engaging with Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa, a design approach has been developed to illustrate narratives through different media, in a way that encourages a deeper and broader bicultural engagement with landscape.

Landscape through graphic representation: Augmented Reality as a tool for interpretation

“…Learning to observe and interpret landscapes is relevant since the territory, and the values it treasures, constitute an essential area for the construction of a solid citizenship, in relation to cultural learning and awareness with the environment; and this, taking the analysis and valuation of landscape to meet the foundations of a renewed management of territorial heritage (Gómez, 2013;Martínez de Pisón, 2010). In this sense, it is relevant not only institutional expert-based approaches but also local (place-based), participatory and inclusive ones (Dakin, 2003;Marques et al, 2019).…”

“…Based on this research axis, our work proposes the following hypothesis: the interactive, auto-guided and dynamic character of Augmented Reality tools is beneficial for representing the distinctive features of landscapes due to the nature of the source materials, the form of activation and the dynamic effects (Damala et al, 2008;Marques et al, 2019); it facilitates the interpretation of forms and structures as well as shows their dynamics, underlining the diachronic dimension, by showing the action over time of the underlying natural and human processes. This vision underlined in our work is related to the postulates of the European Landscape Convention (signed in Florence, 2000), which has been of vital importance for the approach, understanding and enjoyment of landscapes by the population.…”

Mana Tupuna: Honoring the Ancestors Abroad

“…The concepts and processes of digital and virtual restoration of cultural heritage objects have been fruitfully explored in a variety of Indigenous contexts. Some feel that the return of cultural heritage in digital form can be just as important and, in some cases, more important than the return of the physical objects themselves (Ngata et al 2012;Marques et al 2019).…”