LondonLens

OVERVIEW
LondonLens is an AR experience that turns the streets of the City of London into a living repository of history. Using Niantic's ARDK 3.0 technology, LondonLens harnesses the unique storytelling power of London's Square Mile to reveal the colonial origins of the global financial system and its surprising fragility today.

RESPONSIBILITIES
*Researched topographic history of London in museums, archives and libraries
*Iterated rapidly to explore potential sites, stories and experiences
*Crafted epic, global, contemporary narrative rooted in real-world location
*Wrote script and designed interactions to create immersive experience
*Collaborated across time zones with developer in San Francisco

DESIGN PILLARS
* Make history present and reveal present as moment in history
* Narrative must emerge from the real-world environment
* Play to AR's strengths, using it to make the invisible visible
* 'Total journey': walk between wayspots as designed-in part of experience

EXPERIENCE
Using VPS, the user is guided to four atmospheric story locations that correspond to four stages of colonialism. Once localized, audio triggers and virtual objects defined in remote authoring are spawned through user interaction with relevant building elements. By placing its buildings centre-stage LondonLens turns the City of London into a storytelling space that the user explores with their body. The route between locations invites users to rediscover tourist sites through the lens the experience provides.

Concluding at the London Stock Exchange, LondonLens reveals how this hidden past structures our world today. Augmented reality interventions make financial markets visible by revealing their effects at their real-world location. The experience employs AR as a kind of digital grafitti or ‘tagging’, annotating the buildings of the City to reveal its colonial legacy and memorializing lives sacrificed to the idea of unbounded economic growth.