The Secret Garden
Team Members: Aarti Bhalekar & Anushka Khemka
As a multidisciplinary team, we collaborated closely on the creative development of the project from brainstorming the story to making the overall augmented reality experience.
The Secret Garden is a handheld AR experience that invites the audience to visit a hidden garden that only comes to life in extended reality. It is the first chapter in a series of works that encourages the flourishing of starlings by translating bird behaviour to humans through immersive technologies. The songbird’s population is on a huge decline in the UK, and as a result, it is currently on the Red List. According to RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch, the average count of starlings has declined by 82% since 1979. In these times of urgency, it is essential to prevent them from becoming regionally extinct.
In her book Staying with the Trouble, Donna Haraway maintains that “decisions must take place somehow in the presence of those who will bear their consequences”. Our activities affect not only the starling population but also their behaviour. We believe that we are responsible for shaping the conditions for more-than-humans to flourish and that entails respecting the autonomy of ecosystems and non-human life. Through our project, we aim to communicate these urgent issues by inviting our audience to embody a starling and indulge in play.
The Gameplay:
For the story, we worked through storyboards to determine how to present the information we wanted to convey to the audience through interactivity. We also storyboarded the visual layout, carefully planning how elements would be placed in the environment.
The experience begins by introducing the visitor as a starling. A simple prompt gives them a reason to start foraging for food.
The main interaction focuses on searching for leatherjackets, the starling’s prey. Visitors look for larvae and tap to collect them. If the attempt is successful, the leatherjacket disappears from the scene. If not, it turns red. By the end of the experience, the visitor understands why they are no longer alive.
Visitors are also encouraged to move around and explore the environment. Optional touchpoints placed throughout the garden offer more information about the species and its behaviour.
By placing QR codes in public parks, we reached people where they already gather, creating an engaging educational experience without the need for specialised equipment. The park environment itself enhances the sense of spatial immersion. The project is designed primarily for outdoor use, but we also designed it to function effectively in indoor settings.
AR allows us to intentionally reveal what is becoming increasingly difficult to notice within familiar surroundings. It also supports unrestricted movement through real-world spaces, which is essential to the experience of foraging.
The garden being invisible in the real world reflects how starlings are slowly disappearing from cities. AR makes it possible to bring attention to things we’re starting to overlook in everyday spaces. It also lets people move freely through real environments, which is important for the idea of foraging.
In a game, players naturally take on a role and begin thinking from that character’s perspective. The visitor learns through play, because the interaction encourages active participation. The knowledge comes through doing the action itself.
In the AR experience, participants are prompted to forage for leather jackets, only to discover that not all of them are retrievable due to their food being affected by insecticides. Additionally, there are optional touchpoints to learn more about how urbanization impacts the species, including insights into their bird vision, birdsongs, and information to understand their relationship with humans.
The visual storytelling was thoughtfully tailored to reflect how birds perceive their world. For example, the environmental assets were meticulously chosen to replicate specific species of trees and flowers commonly found in urban green spaces that attract starlings. Additionally, the information boxes in the user interface were designed to resemble park signboards, enhancing the thematic connection.
Even the sound design of the AR piece uses spatial audio and UI sounds to help the user navigate the environment. When the user retrieves a leather jacket, they can hear the sound of a bird pecking to eat, and when the leather jacket cannot be consumed, a sound played in a minor key conveys that something is wrong.Spatial sounds like the starlings singing and music coming out of Mozart's piano are only triggered when the visitor goes close to these objects. This not only helps to simulate real-world objects but also adds another layer of interactivity.
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Process Film
The process film brings together the research, narrative development, and making of the AR experience, offering insight into how the project evolved from initial ideas to the final outcome.
Throughout the project, we worked closely with scientists and ecologists from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the British Trust for Ornithology, whose expertise helped shape both the direction and content of the experience. Through these conversations, we learned that the decline in starling populations is closely linked to the use of pesticides and fertilisers, which affect their main prey, leatherjackets. Research from the RSPB also highlights that starling populations increase when more environmentally friendly farming practices are adopted.
By combining ecological research with interactive storytelling, the project aims to make the hidden impact of environmental change more visible through play and participation.