AR Walking Tour / Game App, 2013
in collaboration with Meredith Drum
Made with original software, Palimpsest, by Phoenix Toews.
For iPad / Apple iOS
Oyster City is an augmented reality walking tour and game tracing the demise and resurgence of oysters in New York Harbor as a window into larger ecological, social, and economic systems. Created in collaboration with Meredith Drum during a residency at LMCC’s Arts Center at Governors Island (March–July 2013), the project populates the island with AR elements — 3D objects, audio, and texts visible through a mobile device — inviting participants to learn and play as they move through the landscape. Players follow geo-located clues to collect ten coins, each carrying a narrative about a specific site, and unlock an immersive oyster reef.
When Henry Hudson sailed into the bay in 1609, 350 square miles of wild oyster beds surrounded Manhattan. New York City became the world’s largest oyster producer until industrial pollution and overharvesting depleted the population by the early 20th century. Tracing how oysters were cultivated, monetized, and depleted reveals the entanglement of ecological and economic systems — a story now continuing through efforts to restore oyster reefs as living infrastructure for shoreline regeneration.
The game was built using Palimpsest, open-source software developed by Phoenix Toews that enables GPS placement of text, images, and sounds alongside touch, orientation, and movement events — positioning the participant as performer as well as viewer.
Oyster City has been presented at Mobility Shifts (The New School, 2011), i-Docs (Bristol, 2012), ISEA 2012 (Albuquerque), Women in Art and Technology (Arizona State University, 2014), Visible Evidence 22 (Toronto, 2015) and Environmental Storytelling and Virtual Reality Symposium (Penn Program in Environmental Humanities, 2019). It appears in Paul Lester’s Digital Innovations for Mass Communications (Routledge, 2013) and xtine burrough’s Foundations of Digital Art and Design (New Riders, 2013).
Video Documentation
what you would see on the iPad screen as you played on Governor’s Island
Without narration (3:39) | With narration (5:56)
password: estuary
THANK YOU: Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Building 110 Swing Space residency on Governors Island
