Cedar Mask-Head Custom Location AR

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  Cedar Head Sculpture

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  Still from video

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  Still from video

Inspiration

At the edge of the forest where I live there is a sculpture of a human head carved from native Western Red Cedar. To me it speaks of the oldest history of the land I live on, and I chose it as the object on which to place visual and sonic augmentations to communicate a sense of the history, mythology, and language of what was once Native American land.

What it does and how I built it

My Snap AR lens, “Cedar Mask-Head”, uses Lens Studio’s Custom AR Location capabilities to locate and identify the sculpture on which the augmentation elements are placed. There are two different but related augmentations: The first augmentation element is a video collage I made using my own artwork. It tries to show through rich imagery how intertwined the forest was with the first peoples who dwelt on this land, and evokes the spirit of the native cedar trees from which the sculpture was made. The sound track of the video is a poem I wrote in the native Tillamook language. Since the last speaker of that language, Minnie Scovell, died in 1972 I had to splice together words and phrases of that speaker’s recorded vocabulary to have her speak the poem, as if she were speaking to us out of the past. The second augmentation uses 3D text as a translation into English of the Tillamook poem. The text is set against a background where I used a custom material to display a solar eclipse; the message is to express hope that light returns from darkness and that we can relearn the older ways of respecting the land.

Challenges

Initially I worried that because of the sculpture's fairly remote location that the cell service might not be reliable enough for the lens to work smoothly. However, by compressing resources I managed to keep the lens around 3MB without losing the quality of the video element. In tests the lens works quickly and smoothly.

What's next for Cedar Mask-Head Custom Location AR

I think of this lens as a test case for augmenting cultural artifacts which are off the beaten track. It proves that we can display artistic and educational material in captivating and ecologically sensitive ways. I am already working on a series of projects which brings similar lenses into other, underserved and neglected spaces. Overall this Snap AR lenses like this can be a reminder of the complex cultures which went before us, and encourage the users to remember that even in remote, out-of-the-way forested places there are rich histories and traditions pulsing under our feet and in the air around us.

Built With

• javascript
• lensstudio
• snapar