munkination
Creative XR, Visualise, Royal Opera House
PROJECT GOAL
A prototype augmented reality (AR) app for iPhones & Androids which places the audience member at the centre of a futuristic adventure story about climate change. This app is the first glimpse into the Munkination world.
A Concept by HAM the Illustrator created for Creative XR in 2020.
Our AR app, developed in collaboration with Visualise, introduces an innovative way to experience storytelling. By placing a virtual 'portal' in your physical surroundings, you can step through it and follow the guidance of a member from the Usan tribe, who speaks from the future.
Once you walk through this portal, you enter a visually abstract representation of the future—an immersive descent through time into a progressively darker world. This environment and its animations were crafted using a VR painting tool called 'Tilt Brush'. The virtual landscape was brought to life by artist Kayleigh Eliza, who drew inspiration from HAM and the Royal Opera House to create this stunning depiction of the Munkination narrative.
As you navigate this journey, an incredible soundtrack—composed jointly by HAM and the Royal Opera House—plays in the background. The audio is spatially tracked, enhancing your immersion and helping to anchor you within the context of this new world. At the journey's end, you encounter four members of the San tribe, setting the stage for the next phase of the experience involving intricate face masks.
MUNKINATION XR
“A TRIP DOWN
MEMORY LANE”
CREDITS
Executive Producers
Royal Opera House/ Audience Labs:
Artistic Director – Annette Mees
Senior Producer – Sam King
Project Producer – Eva Liparova
Technical Partners
Visualise:
Technical Lead/ XR Supervisor – Henry Stuart
Producer – Richard Loader
3D Sound Designer – Henrik Opperman
Creative Team
Director & Composer - Alex “HAM” Minney
Lead VR Artist – Kayleigh Eliza
Talent:
Opera Soprano – Gweneth-Ann Rand
Opera Baritone – Ross Ramgobin
Voiceover writer – Simone Ibbet-Brown
Voiceover Artist – Gweneth-Ann Rand
Ultimately Munkination was built to raise awareness in climate change, this is just a small part of the bigger Munkination story, but one that we hope will open more doors (and portals) for this brilliant concept in the future.