Hello. My name is Pavel Savushkin. I am an experience designer for XR projects. I lead the WOWlab team and together we are making an art project Bilibin XR for the AR glasses.
In this publication, I will tell you about my experience of using XR technologies in art projects.
As a designer of XR project experience, I pay attention to what a person feels. What kind of experience does a person gain when passing through the space of ideas created by the project.
Experience forms a picture of the world. The picture of the world determines our values and actions.
A fairy tale is the most ancient way of sharing a experience.
Bilibin XR is an interactive folk tale for augmented reality glasses.
Bilibin XR is based on the images of the folk story “A Tale about Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf”. There are 7 chapters in our interactive fairy tale. The player can pass each chapter many times, in different ways.
The player forms his own Hero’s Path through the choices he or she makes.
It is important to me that the images and actions of the fairy tale would teach the player the Good.
In order to write variants of plots, we are inspired by the works of anthropologists: Joseph Campbell with his work “The Power of Myth”, Vladimir Propp “The Morphology of a fairy tale”, “ The Golden Branch” George Fraser.
A fairy tale is a universal language for all cultures.
In the work “The Power of Myth”, Campbell describes the idea of a monomyth. A single history that connects all the cultures of the peoples. The story is about a hero who goes to new lands for good. The structure of the monomyth underlies such works as the Iliad, The Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, Star Wars and many other stories that are known by the whole world, because they use the universal structure of the myth for all peoples.
In the Bilibin XR project, we transfer the fairy tale to augmented reality glasses.
In cooperation with the British School of Design and Art, we conducted large-scale research, which we use in creating scenarios, mechanics and graphics of the project.
Part of our research is devoted to surveys on how people feel about fairy tales. This is what people said when we asked about the perception of a fairy tale in museums and cultural spaces:
“Fairy tales touch on philosophical layers, historically go back to ancient spiritual practices”
“Fairy tales are the voice of conscience”
“Fairy tales are the strongest metaphor and it’s very beautiful”
The result of our research is reflected on a virtual whiteboard.
Creating visual maps is part of the UX design method for XR. The map shows all the details of the research, surveys, plot, graphics and mechanics.
We use the map to create a scenario and make each scene different so that each gives a new experience.
For example, in the first chapter, the story revolves around the player. Portal windows appear on the real walls of the room, and the fabulous Firebird flies in front of the player in augmented reality glasses. In the first chapter, the Player practically does not need to walk, the entire interactive story with quest elements takes place around the player in his real room.
In the following chapters of the fairy tale, the Player sets off on a journey. Like in Pokemon Go, the player needs to walk around the city to complete the task. From such contrasts of mechanics, we collect all 7 chapters of our fairy tale to make the experience amazing and explore new ways of storytelling in augmented reality glasses.
For 5 years I have been creating art projects using augmented and virtual reality technologies. It is my goal as an XR designer to explore the ways of storytelling and mechanics and use them for giving new experiences.
I have worked with major museums, such as the Tretyakov Gallery, the Gogol Museum in Serpukhov and the Museum of Russian Impressionism.
Art VR team and I as an Experience designer, created three VR projects for the Tretyakov Gallery that are dedicated to three artists: Malevich, Goncharova, Shishkin. The projects have become part of a permanent exhibition at the museum.
Culture-related projects inspire me. They are based on the great world works of art. When I come into contact with art, I feel that I am becoming a better person, understanding the world around me more on a deeper level.
To stretch cultural threads into a new reality is a purpose that I strive to carry through my work.
In the project dedicated to Ivan Vasilyevich Shishkin, the Player has the opportunity to create his own forest. The great artist painted nature, endowing every leaf and broken branch with spiritual metaphors of the human path.
In the VR project dedicated to Shishkin the Player uses the mechanics creating the forest around himself and in the process learns the meanings that the artist put into his works.
In the project dedicated to Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova, my team and I recreated the studio of the great artist filled it with 175 objects taken from her paintings. We gave the Player the opportunity to independently put up the easel and learn the history of the artist through the objects.
In the project dedicated to Kazimir Malevich, we tried to convey the experience when Malevich discovered the perception of the world behind the form of objects — a suprematist world which the player can take a step into.
All my projects related to culture are created on the basis of extensive research that involved artistic experts. We apply the same detailed approach in the new project Bilibin XR, in which we combine a fairy tale with the works of the great artist Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin.
The artistic style of the Bilibin XR project is based on illustrations by Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin.
Fairy tales with Illustrations by Bilibin were read to millions of children. The images that Bilibin found in his illustrations breathe truth. The truthfulness in Bilibin’s works is the result of many years of research of ancient cultural images, updated and transmitted to a new generation through a fairy tale.
“The tale of Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf” is the first fairy tale designed by Bilibin.
In the Bilibin XR project, we strive to continue the research through the interactivity of the augmented reality glasses narrative.
We want to present a fairy tale to a new generation in a new reality.
Make the experience in augmented reality glasses fantastic.
At this stage, our main goal is to partner with companies that produce augmented reality glasses.
We will adapt the interactive fairy tale for the glasses of our partners and show the technical and artistic maximum possible on the device.
If you can help us with contacts or you are interested in participating in the development of the project:
Write to me, Pavel Sovushkin via personal mail: Sovushkin@WOWlabXR.com
On Twitter, I show the stages of work on a project:
https://twitter.com/PSovushkin
Subscribe to follow the development of the project. We will be glad to have any contacts that will help in the development of the project Bilibin XR for AR glasses.
Thank You.
