Seeing and knowing Titanic Belfast using augmented reality: an auto-ethnographic view by Helen Jackson

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Summary – 
This paper explores auto-ethnographic and participatory research to investigate how the practice of vision shown through a location based AR viewer such as a mobile phone or google card board creates and reveals values and meanings connected to place specific interests and facts. It attempts to put a language to AR and provide an understanding of AR. It focuses on the show & tell element of the AR project, showing what you can be achieved from the use of AR but tells the story of the history of the Titanic in Belfast.

The Author has authority in this particular topic as she has written and published 11 reports/journal based on or refer to the theory of Augmented reality. It is clear from this article to see that this paper intended audience is for those who are interested in the titanic story, a key interest in AR and how that can be used to show something that couldn’t be seen otherwise. Along with Local people with a connection to the story, family ties with the building of the ship/local area.

​This paper identifies the key themes such as bringing an understanding of how AR can bring people closer to their own history and help to give users a deeper understanding whilst giving a personal perspective into how emerging technologies can elicit such responses of amazement. It aims to analyse how the use of AR can help create a connection between past and present.
   The AR experience helps aid visual storytelling and provides a visual experience to help the user identify their current whereabouts and how that correlates with the history of events that happened in that specific place.     

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​​Key Definitions
• Auto – ethnographic - Autoethnography, is a form of qualitative research in which an author uses self-reflection and writing to explore anecdotal and personal experience and connect this autobiographical story to wider cultural, political, and social meanings and understandings.  This is vital in this article as it is the vocal point of the text; the author focuses on how this AR project will specifically connect with locals.
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• Introspection - the examination or observation of one's own mental and emotional processes. This relates to this topic as this enables the author to full understand how the subjects of the AR experience will be affected by connecting it with their own mental and emotional process.

• Ontology - the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being. a set of concepts and categories in a subject area or domain that shows their properties and the relations between them. This term aids in the articles attempt to put a language to AR and provide an understanding of AR.

• Visual fidelity - the degree of exactness with which something is copied or reproduced. This is key to this piece as it is based on an historic artefact, so the images with in the AR experience need to be exact replicates of the titanic for the project to serve its purpose. 

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 Links to other Articles relation to the subject of this Paper

This article touches upon the similar theme of how AR can engage a group of people
http://www.academia.edu/37493981/Augmented_Reality_Experience_Initial_Perceptions_of_Higher_Education_Students
 
This book develops on the idea posed in the paper on how the use of spatial augmented reality can help to immerse a user
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781439864944
 
This again links to the idea of special augmented reality
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319494064_Spatial_Augmented_Reality_SAR_for_Museum_Learning_Merging_Augmented_Reality_Based_Features_in_Educational_Space

This links to an article in relation to the top
www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2016/03/24/news/explore-belfast-with-new-virtual-reality-app-462332/

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Practice based solutions 

1- A practice based solution to this paper would be to carry out this experience again with tourists using the same technology to see if it would they elicit the same responses as the locals who grew up with this historical site. 

​2-​ It would be useful to carry this out using other historical sites, some more well known than others and have groups test this out to collect the data to see if this experience could be carried out on smaller historical events which are relevant to only locals rather than just larger well know historical sites and events.
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3 - To take this experience one step farther it would interesting to carry this out on a larger scale around a culturally and historically rich city where at certain points in the city by using nfc, allow the audience to view an AR experience specific to the history of the space they are standing at that moment on their phones to create an AR tour which the audience can experience at their own pace.