BoodjAR

CLIENT | City of Fremantle

PLATFORM | iOS and Android mobile app

DEVELOPMENT | Unity and AWS

ROLE | Technical Producer

Brief

The City of Fremantle liaised with Whadjuk elders on a program for Aboriginal artists with traditional art practices to learn about augmented reality as an emerging technology that could be utilised for artistic expression and to “harness new technology to bring ancient culture into sharp and present focus”. I joined the program as Technical Producer to coordinate the development of these artworks and a location-based AR mobile application.

Role + Responsibilities

• Design: User Experience, UI, wireframes

• Writing: Copywriting including onboarding and UI, App Store material, assisted with marketing collateral

• Production: Liaised with the City of Fremantle, Envelope Audio studio and Unity Developer. Coordinated six teams of Aboriginal artists and 3D Technical Artist counterparts to create first-time augmented reality artworks over eight intensive weeks. Each work was a direct response and geo-anchored to a physical location.

• Technical: QA testing and deployment to Apple App Store and Google Play.

• Workshop facilitator: Prepared and delivered workshops for Aboriginal artists including overview of AR technology, case studies of AR used for art/narrative/storytelling, workflow for creating digital AR content and hands on demonstrations with AR hardware including Hololens, Quest, Nreal and mobile applications.

Outcome

• The app was launched launched as part of Fremantle’s 10 Nights in Port Festival on 10 August 2023 and remains as a legacy project.

• It has received unanimous positive feedback from Festival attendees and general public.

• The project was a finalist for the 2023 WA Screen Culture Awards in the category “Virtual Reality, 360 or Augmented Reality”.