Find the brief for the challenge here: Digital Storytelling and BIPOC Cultures Linking VR/AR Mixed Reality Tools and Technologies
Instead of going into BIPOC cultures, I will be reviewing an interactive AR zine based on an artist’s experience with ADHD and my conversation with them about their design process. I believe this topic still intersects with the challenge’s main learning objective of reflecting from an EDIDA framework perspective.
As someone with ADHD myself, it was an refreshing to see a common experience visualized in a way that was thoughtful and creative. I have included the QR code to the zine in the blogpost below, and purposefully excluded any screenshots, as to not detract from the AR experience for the readers.
The other day I visited the art studio Slice of Life located on Commercial Drive as part of the East Van Culture Crawl.
In a corner, someone was showcasing their zines, which piqued my interest. I initiated a conversation with the artist, Rowan (@keeponcreative), who created an interactive AR zine on their ADHD experience.
Before continuing to the rest of the blogpost, please take some time and experience the AR interactive zine yourself here:
Rowan created this zine to visualize the ADHD experience first-handedly through the interactive dialogue panels of a conversation. They hope to increase the ADHD awareness so that neurotypicals can understand the challenges that ADHD folks have during conversations with others.
They created the experience in Adobe Aero, and intertwined the digital interface of AR with the analogue form of zines and illustrations seamlessly.
In a choose-your-own-adventure type of interaction, the reader can choose from three different paths in a text message style conversation, with an insider view into the internal monologue; visual distractions obfuscating the dialogue bubbles; and rapid fire walls of texts.
Some aspects Rowan chose to focus on was:
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- Info-dumping: Sharing a large amount of detailed information about a topic of interest is a way ADHD folks connect with others and to express that they’re excited about a specific topic. However, sometimes it may come off as overwhelming or dominating the conversation.
- Distractions: Staying on top of the conversation thread can be a challenge for ADHD folks, while overstimulating environments can also effect attention and participation in a conversation.
- Interruptions: for many ADHD folks, the mind stays active and often thoughts get left behind and fade away if they do not get expressed as they come along. This can come of as rude or misreading of social cues when they interrupt conversations.
While conversing with Rowan, I felt like they conveyed an AR experience that felt really close to my experiences with ADHD. I learned that they are slowly working on their capstone project, “Visualize”, that addresses the lesser known qualities of ADHD through experiential zine. They created AR simulations to supplement the zine with animations allowing the reader to engage in a more embodied way.
We also briefly discussed the challenges of creating AR experiences; the technical limitations using Adobe Aero; integration of more analogue forms of media, or making users want to engage in “going the extra step” to use technology in hand with art.
This conversation with Rowan has made me reflect more on the utilization of AR with DIY culture values of decentralization of knowledge through analogue media of zines, especially with leveraging the affordance of AR to embed an experience for more embodiment, engagement and interaction.