FULL-AAR · Audio Augmented Reality
WHS’s Full-AAR project explores six-degrees-of-freedom audio augmented reality as a narrative medium: stories written directly into real spaces using virtual sound.
Full-AAR is WHS’s long-term exploration into the narrative possibilities of audio augmented reality (AAR) with six-degrees-of-freedom (6DoF). In these experiences the user can move freely in a real-world space while virtual sounds are embedded in the environment and played back through headphones.
The core idea is to create an illusion of virtual sounds coexisting with the real world, and to use that illusion to tell stories that are tightly coupled to the surrounding architecture, history and atmosphere of the place.
The non-profit project aims to develop 6DoF AAR as a storytelling medium with its own narrative language. The emphasis is on indoor experiences in complex, multi-room environments such as historical buildings and home museums.
Since no comprehensive technical platforms or artistic tools yet exist for the medium, Full-AAR tests a wide range of virtual audio solutions, indoor tracking systems, game engine workflows, system configurations and narrative techniques. A custom virtual acoustics application is being developed in collaboration with the Aalto University Acoustics Lab.
Any findings and emerging best practices are shared in an internal project wiki to support future works using the medium.
6DoF AAR can be used to convey alternative narratives of a place through virtual sounds that intertwine with the audible reality: voices and events that seem to happen in the next room, behind a wall, above the ceiling or inside an object.
Unlike visual AR, AAR does not interfere with the user’s sight at all. This opens specific artistic possibilities and can be beneficial in environments where situational awareness is crucial, such as museums, shopping centres and other urban spaces.
AAR may also become a meaningful medium for visually impaired audiences. Within Full-AAR, visually impaired participants are invited to test demos and to give feedback on how they experience the interplay between real space and artificial acoustics, as well as the fidelity and plausibility of the virtual audio.
As a platform for testing narrative ideas, Full-AAR prepares a series of demos and narrative experiences open to the public. The first experience is premiered at WHS’s own Unika gallery in Helsinki.
The story is rooted in the history of the venue and the businesses that have operated in the premises: the laundry Vaahto Oy, the rubber carpet shop Kumila Oy, and the legendary joke shop Pilailupuoti. These layers, together with rumoured connections between Vaahto and a subversive underground Nazi group during wartime, add texture and narrative depth to the space.
The experience creates a shareable and at the same time private narrative space for each listener. Interactive, branching dramaturgy transforms the venue into an audible story-world where the audience become the main protagonists.
