As our environment changes, so does our experience. 

Hard Place/Good Place is a creative research project, focusing on lived experiences of being in a ‘hard place’ or a ‘good place’, through a collection of personal and community stories, told through Augmented Reality [AR] experiences.

Hard Place/Good Place Yarra Ranges. Video produced by Yarra Ranges Council.

Hard Place/Good Place: Yarra Ranges (2022) reveals the stories of young people in the Yarra Ranges (Vic) who were impacted by the 2021 storm event. It invites the viewer into an immersive experience of places and objects that these young people identified as the focus of their stories. Exhibited at Yarra Ranges Regional Museum, 28 Sept – 27 Nov 2022. Read more at The Age here.
Inspired by works such as Parragirls Past, Present* the AR works each explore the lived experience of place, comprising a spoken personal ‘lived experience’ narrative (up to 15 minutes) and 3D immersive experience of moving through that place, led by the recorded voice of the story-teller.

Hard Place/Good Place: Yarra Ranges (2022) at Yarra Ranges Regional Museum.

The AR experience is viewed on iPhone or tablet and created by 3D scanning of the place/location that features in the narrative. AR involves overlaying digital information (the scanned image) onto a real-world environment, with the effect that space in front of the viewer appears to be transformed.

The initial projects will focus on experiences in regional, rural and remote locations across Australia, including areas affected by drought, bushfire and flood. The AR works will be published online and exhibited via The Big Anxiety festival / The Big Reach in Queensland and in the Yarra Ranges in Victoria in 2022. See HERE for more information about Hard Place/Good Place at the Yarra Ranges Regional Museum.

Hard Place/Good Place is led by the fEEL Lab at UNSW.