INDX
Immersive Design | Design Research | Augmented Reality
Wall of Courage
Augmented Reality
Inspiration
Eighty portraits. Eighty individual children. One installation deliberately designed to access anywhere.
Released
(Project)
Wall of Courage
Wall of Courage
Immersive Design | Design Research | Augmented Reality
Immersive Design | Design Research | Augmented Reality
What happens to an artwork when the physical art is gone?
What happens to an artwork when the physical art is gone?
Experience Design UX Research Augmented Reality Research-through-Design
TYPE OF WORK
Heather Haynes | The Art of Courage
CLIENT
6 weeks
TIMEFRAME
RELEASED
(Introduction)
I designed and built a web-based AR environment that allows the art to exist beyond its original physical installation.
I designed and built a web-based AR environment that allows the art to exist beyond its original physical installation.
(Approach)
Preserve the encounter, not just the image.
Preserve the encounter, not just the image.
Digitising the artwork was easy. Preserving what it does to a viewer was the harder problem.
Digitising the artwork was easy. Preserving what it does to a viewer was the harder problem.
The AR environment avoided animation, audio, decorative overlays, and unnecessary interaction. Instead, the design retained the dense portrait grid and used spatial scale, proximity, and simple interaction to recreate something fundamental about encountering the physical work: first seeing a collective, then seeing a person.
The AR environment avoided animation, audio, decorative overlays, and unnecessary interaction. Instead, the design retained the dense portrait grid and used spatial scale, proximity, and simple interaction to recreate something fundamental about encountering the physical work: first seeing a collective, then seeing a person.
So the technology was deliberately quiet.
So the technology was deliberately quiet.
(Challenge)
You can preserve an image. Can you preserve its presence?
You can preserve an image. Can you preserve its presence?
Socially engaged art often depends on place, scale, and physical encounter; qualities that are easily flattened when work moves onto a screen. The challenge was to explore whether augmented reality could sustain enough of that embodied experience to support meaning-making and testimony after the original installation was gone.
Socially engaged art often depends on place, scale, and physical encounter; qualities that are easily flattened when work moves onto a screen. The challenge was to explore whether augmented reality could sustain enough of that embodied experience to support meaning-making and testimony after the original installation was gone.
(Solution)
Make the digital experience physical again.
Make the digital experience physical again.
I built the Wall of Courage as a world-tracked WebAR environment, dividing the eighty portraits across one spatial scenes. Viewers could physically move around the installation and tap individual portraits to isolate them, shifting between the scale of the collective story and the intimacy of one child.
I built the Wall of Courage as a world-tracked WebAR environment, dividing the eighty portraits across one spatial scenes. Viewers could physically move around the installation and tap individual portraits to isolate them, shifting between the scale of the collective story and the intimacy of one child.
Experience Design UX Research Augmented Reality Research-through-Design
The experience was tested with 32 participants, including people who had previously encountered the physical installation and people seeing it for the first time. Research combined observation, surveys, and interaction data to examine embodiment, credibility, context, and how viewing the work privately changed the experience.
The experience was tested with 32 participants, including people who had previously encountered the physical installation and people seeing it for the first time. Research combined observation, surveys, and interaction data to examine embodiment, credibility, context, and how viewing the work privately changed the experience.
Eighty portraits. Eighty individual children. One installation deliberately designed to access anywhere.
Eighty portraits. Eighty individual children. One installation deliberately designed to access anywhere.
Eighty portraits. Eighty individual children. One installation deliberately designed to access anywhere.
(Achievements)
AR didn’t replace the wall. It changed where the wall could exist.
AR didn’t replace the wall. It changed where the wall could exist.
Testing showed that spatial presence remained important even without the original site. Participants could experience the work privately and at their own pace, while the research also revealed the limits of digital preservation, particularly around context, credibility, onboarding, and device fatigue.
Testing showed that spatial presence remained important even without the original site. Participants could experience the work privately and at their own pace, while the research also revealed the limits of digital preservation, particularly around context, credibility, onboarding, and device fatigue.
Echoes From The Audience
Echoes From The Audience
Testimonial coming soon. Heather has already called the project important work and is now using the AR experience for fundraising, so I’m feeling reasonably confident about this one.
Testimonial coming soon. Heather has already called the project important work and is now using the AR experience for fundraising, so I’m feeling reasonably confident about this one.
Heather Haynes
Heather Haynes
Artist
Artist
32 Participants
Two viewer groups allowed the research to compare people with prior experience of the physical artwork against those encountering the Wall of Courage for the first time.
80 Portraits in AR
The complete artwork was translated into two world-tracked scenes while maintaining the dense visual structure fundamental to the original installation.
From Research to Real Use
What began as a research prototype has continued beyond the study, with the AR environment now supporting the Wall of Courage’s fundraising and outreach.
32 Participants
Two viewer groups allowed the research to compare people with prior experience of the physical artwork against those encountering the Wall of Courage for the first time.
80 Portraits in AR
The complete artwork was translated into two world-tracked scenes while maintaining the dense visual structure fundamental to the original installation.
From Research to Real Use
What began as a research prototype has continued beyond the study, with the AR environment now supporting the Wall of Courage’s fundraising and outreach.
Wall of Courage
Augmented Reality
Wall of Courage
Augmented Reality
Eighty portraits. Eighty individual children. One installation deliberately designed to access anywhere.
Eighty portraits. Eighty individual children. One installation deliberately designed to access anywhere.
Eighty portraits. Eighty individual children. One installation deliberately designed to access anywhere.
SHARE THIS PROJECT ON SOCIAL
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