ABSTRACT

This chapter examines Epiphyte, an experimental mobile AR game recently staged within the Dandenong Ranges, Australia. While mixed reality experiences situated in urban contexts have received extensive scholarly and critical attention, the potential of augmented and mixed realities to alter our engagement with ‘natural’ environments is comparatively under researched and therefore less well understood. Epiphyte responds to this issue in playful and multisensorial ways. In this chapter, we detail the creative research process behind the Epiphyte project, focusing on the experience and relations of the players when traversing its augmented bush walking setting. Through this process of critical reflection, we explore how contemplative forms of location-based gameplay can be used as a place-making practice—to frame, interpret and represent bushland settings in new and alternative ways.