Yu Du
The Second Home: Life of Immigration in the US
Master of Arts Graduate Final Project
Spring, 2017
Committee Chair: Prof. Laura Zaylea
Committee Members: Nancy Morris, Kristine Weatherston

https://youtu.be/a_ufGZrTDYk

Curatorial Statement by Prof. Laura Zaylea:
This augmented reality book is crafted with great care. The physical book is hand sewn, and the videos that augment the book are carefully edited and titled. The book tells the story of four people who have immigrated to the US. The thing most striking to me is the way this project plays with the delicacy of the material (the hand-sewn book), the intimacy of the stories (as a documentarian, Yu Du is a patient listener who celebrates the lives of her interviewees), and the way AR is implemented. The images in the physical book are also the first frames of each video, and so when the video plays, it appears to “jump right off the page.” AR could easily be made to jump to full screen, but instead AR in this project is programmed to require an on-going connection to the trigger image, so that video and book are always one. Looking through the screen of a smartphone — right through the picture frame that documentary participant Raymonde Djokie holds towards the camera — creates a connection between viewer and interviewee that is difficult to put into words, but easily and immediately felt as the AR portions of this project are experienced by the user.