Stolen Friend
“Stolen Friend” is an AR experience that aims to educate the public by taking them on a journey through the history of Hoa Hakananai’a and how it was transported from the Easter Island 155 years ago, making its way to the British Museum today.
AR Experience Walkthrough
Characters
The Spirit of Hoa Hakananai'a - The Bird
We really liked the idea of a bird representing the trapped spirit of the Moai because birds symbolizes freedom ; they have the liberty to fly to any location and we felt this was a perfect metaphor to encapsulate the freeing of the spirit.
Bird 1 is inspired by the Sooty Tern bird , which is a significant part of the Rapa Nui Birdman tradition.
Bird 2 is inspired by the 'Manu Piri' , the Rapa Nui symbol of union. We decided to take this further because it fitted better with our visual aesthetic and style and also had a fantasical element to it.
The Seven Explorers - The Ahu Akivi
The Rapa Nui legend has it that the King sent 7 explorers to naviagte across the sea to locate an island for his people to settle. This island later came to be known as Easter Island. We embraced these 7 explorers as spirits from the Easter Island who become storytellers in our narrative to educate the public about the history of the isalnd.
The Bird Man Tradition
During the Birdman Tradition, young men competed by climbing down the cliff face of Rano Kau, swimming to Motu Nui (a small island off the coast by Rano Kau) and the first to capture an egg of a the Sooty Tern bird and swim back to Rapa Nui was the winner and named the Chief for that year.
The motifs on the egg are based on the drawings made by the birdman cult depicting the Tangatu Manu - The famous Bird-Man deity of Easter Island. The Hoa Hakananaia in the British Museum is the only Moai that has the reliefs that express the new cult of birdman.
Process
User Testing
We completed a round of qualitative User Testing for our AR experience, with the focus being perfecting the use of instructions within our app to be accessible for a wide target audience. We started with the bare minimum of instructions needed and used answers from our questionnaire to add pieces of instruction or guidance where necessary. This allowed us to make sure there were sufficient instructions, even for someone completely new to the world of AR to be able to understand how to progress through the experience in the desired manner, without disrupting the narrative flow.
Which side would you pick?
*Special thanks to Eric Fanghanel for voicing the 7 Ahus :)
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