Doublage AR project
Overview
“Doublage” is a series of commissioned augmented reality applications developed as part of multiple exhibitions by Mona Young-eun Kim. Each AR application was created specifically for its exhibition context, including AL/MA (Montpellier), La Nuit Verte Biennale (Bordeaux), Pont du Gard, and “Ghostly Distilled Matter” (Paris).
Rather than a single artwork, “Doublage” exists as a set of site-responsive AR layers, each adapted to its location, scale, and audience.
Core Concept
The central concept of “Doublage” is the decolonisation of the urban and architectural environment. The project deliberately avoids relying on physical signage, plaques, or authoritative text embedded in space.
Instead, information is removed from permanent structures and reintroduced through augmented reality as customisable, optional layers. This shift questions who produces meaning in public space, and allows interpretation to remain fluid, personal, and non-hierarchical.
Site-Specific AR Approach
Each iteration of “Doublage” responds directly to its exhibition site. Augmented elements are anchored to specific locations and viewpoints, appearing only when visitors move through space in particular ways.
The AR layer does not explain the site or overwrite it. Instead, it coexists quietly with the physical environment, offering parallel readings that depend on movement, curiosity, and attention.
Gamification
For the Pont du Gard iteration, the project introduced light gamification elements to support navigation and engagement across the large archaeological site. Rather than traditional wayfinding, visitors progressed through discovery-based interaction.
Objects were collected through exploration, turning exploration itself into a form of play. Gamification was used as a guiding structure, not a reward system — encouraging attentiveness, orientation, and embodied exploration rather than completion.
Technical Systems
The “Doublage” AR applications combine GPS-based object placement with image recognition and tap-to-place interaction, allowing digital content to be anchored to both large-scale environments and specific physical surfaces.
Depending on the exhibition context, content was positioned either geographically or activated by scanning printed or architectural elements. Visitors could also place certain 3D objects directly into the space with touch interaction.
The interactive AR interface includes language selection built into an AR UI. These systems support a flexible, site-responsive AR framework that adapts to different scales, audiences, and curatorial needs.
Project Focus
“Doublage” uses augmented reality as a tool for re-authoring space, rather than enhancing it visually. By relocating information from fixed signage to invisible, optional layers, the project proposes an alternative model for how public and cultural spaces can be read.
Across its iterations, the work explores AR as a means of multiplicity — allowing environments to hold overlapping narratives without enforcing a single, dominant interpretation.
