Tanvi Babbar

Tanvi Babbar is a multidisciplinary designer working with technologies - such as augmented reality, artificial intelligence and virtual reality to create immersive projects.

She graduated with a degree in Economics and Mathematics but quickly discovered her passion for design. As a result, she started working in fields ranging from graphic design, advertising and digital design.

During her time at the Royal College of Art, she has worked on creating diverse experiences that focus on themes in contemporary cultures. Her interest includes creating narrative-led interactive projects.

Through her work, she hopes to create moments of excitement, one experience at a time.

My practice focuses on creating interactive storytelling narratives. In an increasingly digital world, exploring different media through experimental projects and observing their impact on people’s experiences appeals to me. I seek to address and explore cultural and social issues in the world and communicate these to people.

In my recent projects, I have created immersive mixed-reality installations involving multiple participants. I’m curious about the emotions these scenarios can evoke and how they can help the audience connect with the issues on a deeper level.

‘Finding Lost Echoes’ depicts the impact of urbanisation and homogenisation on traditional cultures. Folk songs tell stories of life. They are sung for the people, by the people. These sounds, which were once staples to everyday lives and stories of people are fading into oblivion.

Through this project, I try to bring attention to these sounds, specifically the ones from Punjabi culture, to which I belong. I reinterpret the everyday music of life by adding the sounds of traditional folk instruments. The project contains a soundscape consisting of everyday sounds being hacked by these folk instruments, along with an augmented reality filter which allows people to look at reimagined moments in life with the sounds of these instruments.

This project intends to encourage people to think about the things we might unknowingly lose from our cultures by delving into my own.

This project is a work in progress as of June 2023. For more updates, visit my website.

Launch Project

Interactive AR Filter (with Sound)

Birthday, Reimagined – Placing the Alghoza (a punjabi folk instrument) in the setting of birthdays. This is an AR filter with sound on interaction.

Friendship, Reimagined – Placing the Dhadd (a punjabi folk instrument) in the setting of friendships. This is an AR filter with sound on interaction.

Medium:

Augmented Reality, Sound

The project explores communication and understanding of intentions in the physical and digital space through an interactive installation involving different verbal and non-verbal cues and the technology we often use to assist us. It addresses the loss of translation of intentions in the digital way of life as it can have significant implications in personal and professional relationships. It looks into the use of digital technologies like AI and live transcription and translation to assess what they mean for the future of human communication.

The experience was equipped with live translations for different languages so participants could interact in the language of their choice.

Video of the immersive experience

In Collaboration with:

Annop Khunwong

Xinyi Lai (Ada)

Medium:

Mixed-Media Installation

artificial-intelligence collaboration cross-cultural-design culture emotion-recognition-ai game immersive-experience immersive-interaction-design interaction-design participatory-design projection-mapping

Cyface is a story about a part of society (Klailas) that uses the media and their control over the spread of information to create a demand for a ‘digital face’, a representation of the idealistic life. The other part of society (Lok), affected by the bio-war, had to mutate to survive in their present world. When aspects of their lives are infiltrated by this mediated information, telling them to upgrade their way of life, to procure the digital face and the seemingly idealistic life that comes with it, they begin to chase the way of life (life in the Klailas) advertised to them.

The experience was designed as a half-real half-virtual experience where the audience got to view life as a Lok person in the real world and ascend to Klailas in the virtual space through VR headsets. It is a story created to relay the idea of the mediation of information and its influence on people and their identities.

The images below take the user through the story.