HA-HA
Tainui. Regan Tamanui is World famous in Melbourne, Street Artist HA-HA.
Regan is a self-taught artist, having began exhibiting by spraying stencils in Melbourne’s laneway’s in 2002, under the name of HA-HA.
He is now known as one of the founders of the stencil art movement internationally, and his work is seen in galleries around the world.
HA-HA
Personal Statement - Regan Tamanui / HA-HA
My work explores the space between reality, memory and imagination. Through moving image, sound, meditation and augmented space, I am interested in how people can exist in more than one world at the same time.
My Desert Island AR concept is a place of shifting realities. It invites people to be present in the physical world while also entering an AR environment and an internal meditative state. For me, this creates a layered experience where the real, the virtual and the emotional can sit together at once.
The island is imagined as a living world that responds to feeling and perception. It may change with emotion - becoming bright, open and sunny, or grey, distant and reflective. It can also move through different states of life, carrying people back to youth, into middle age, or forward into imagined futures. I see it as a poetic space where time, identity and choice are fluid.
Music is central to this vision. I am inspired by African electronic rhythms, movement and style and by the spiritual cycles of life, return and transformation. These influences shape the island as a place of rhythm, contemplation and possibility.
The values behind this work connect strongly to Good Health and Well Being, Quality Education and Affordable and Clean Energy. I want the work to support reflection, open imaginative learning and suggest new ways of thinking about how we live together in the world.
At its heart, this project is about creating an artistic experience that feels alive - a space where people can pause, shift perspective and encounter another version of reality.
〰️ 3 x videos for your AR+ desert island
〰️ 3 x videos for your AR+ desert island
HA-HA
#3 i like the African electronic music movement there’s a certain beat & the way they dress that from my perspective that is reminiscent of the hari krisna reincarnation cycle of life perhaps the island can take people to different time periods of their life time to experience ( etc take them back to youth or middle aged or even future realities of old age)
Video / Song 3 – African electronic music movement
This suggests rhythm, ritual, transformation, and a cyclical understanding of life.
It frames AR as a time-travelling or life-stage-shifting experience, allowing users to revisit youth, middle age, or future old age.
〰️ 3 x objects for your AR+ desert island •
〰️ 3 x objects for your AR+ desert island •
#1 this video is a guided Meditation it is for shifting realities , you can exist in the real world (current reality) while experimenting an AR world ( desert island) & experiencing an another reality through meditation thus existing in 3 realities at once.
Video / Song 1 – Guided meditation
This suggests AR as a bridge between physical reality, imagined reality, and meditative inner reality.
It frames the island as a space where multiple realities can be experienced at once.
#2 this video is about a one world reality ( there are really multiple realities existing at once) or what i call the game of life , its like sudoku you have choice of play - easy , medium & hard. The island is like a one world experience perhaps the island can adapt to your emotional out on the day ( happy - sunny, sad - gray clouds etc) present different skill levels
Video / Song 2 – One World / game of life
This suggests a unified environment that still contains many simultaneous realities and levels of challenge.
It frames AR as adaptive, responsive, and able to match emotional state or skill level.
A symbolic illustration about the cycle of life and death
It shows human ageing, death personified as a grim reaper, an infinity symbol, birth, and animals emerging from the sea. It looks like an allegorical or spiritual artwork about evolution, mortality, and rebirth.
A Sudoku puzzle
A standard 9×9 Sudoku grid with some numbers filled in and the rest blank.
A directional sign concept about time
A wooden signpost with arrows labelled Past, Present, and Future against a blue sky. It is a conceptual image about time, choice, or perspective.
〰️ 3 x UNSDGs for your AR+ desert island •
〰️ 3 x UNSDGs for your AR+ desert island •
HA-HA
Ethan
Personal Statement - Ethan Wimsett
I work across digital practice, spatial storytelling, and emerging media, with a particular interest in how augmented reality can shift the way people notice, interpret, and interact with the spaces around them. My focus is on creating experiences that feel immediate, accessible, and alive in the real world rather than separate from it.
What interests me most about AR is its ability to introduce surprise, humour, and reflection into everyday environments. I am drawn to work that does not simply place digital content on top of the physical world, but uses location, context, and interaction to create a genuine sense of encounter. In this way, AR becomes less about spectacle and more about perception, presence, and the relationship between people, place, and story.
Through collaborative projects connected to AR+artist™ and AR+IQ, I am interested in how playful interventions can activate public space, support shared experience, and encourage people to see familiar environments differently. I see digital practice as a tool for experimentation and connection, where technical design, artistic intent, and user interaction come together to create moments that are both meaningful and memorable.
At the core of my work is a belief that technology should feel intuitive, human, and grounded in experience. I am interested in building work that is not only innovative, but also socially engaging, culturally aware, and open to discovery.
〰️ 3 x videos for your AR+ desert island
〰️ 3 x videos for your AR+ desert island
Ethan
〰️ 3 x objects for your AR+ desert island •
〰️ 3 x objects for your AR+ desert island •
Item 1 – Guitar
A musical instrument associated with expression, improvisation, and personal agency.
Symbolises authorship, emotional release, and the ability to shape one’s own environment.
Item 2 – Gravity’s Rainbow
A dense, postmodern novel associated with complexity, fragmentation, and layered meaning.
Symbolises layered interpretation, unresolved meaning, and the value of complexity in experience design.
Item 3 – Unity Engine
A real-time creation platform for building digital and interactive environments.
Symbolises world-building, system control, and the capacity to create and share new realities.
These selections suggest an AR world that is authored rather than consumed: experimental, introspective, and built around creative control, ambiguity, and shared meaning-making. 
Analysis of Chosen Songs / Videos
Video / Song 1 – AE_LYON_070524
This choice foregrounds sound, darkness, and mentally constructed space.
It suggests an AR experience where absence, atmosphere, and perception are as important as visible content.
Video / Song 2 – Stalker
This introduces a slow, philosophical journey structured around inward reflection rather than spectacle.
It suggests Ethan values AR as a medium for contemplation, lowered defences, and psychological depth.
Video / Song 3 – forever
This selection brings memory, emotional intensity, and collective human connection into the frame.
It suggests AR as a space for shared feeling and collaborative memory rather than passive viewing.
Item 1 – Guitar
A musical instrument associated with expression, improvisation, and personal agency.
Symbolises authorship, emotional release, and the ability to shape one’s own environment.
Item 2 – Gravity’s Rainbow
A dense, postmodern novel associated with complexity, fragmentation, and layered meaning.
Symbolises layered interpretation, unresolved meaning, and the value of complexity in experience design.
Item 3 – Unity Engine
A real-time creation platform for building digital and interactive environments.
Symbolises world-building, system control, and the capacity to create and share new realities.
These selections suggest an AR world that is authored rather than consumed: experimental, introspective, and built around creative control, ambiguity, and shared meaning-making. 
Media synthesis
Together, the media choices point to an AR experience that is sparse, reflective, and emotionally charged. The desired tone is not flashy or effects-driven, but immersive through mood, slowness, memory, and perceptual openness. 
Item synthesis
Together, the items suggest that a believable AR environment must allow creative agency, intellectual depth, and open-ended exploration. Ethan’s ideal AR world is not fixed; it is something to be composed, questioned, and continually rebuilt. 
SDG Alignment
SDG 2 – Zero Hunger
Suggests a concern for fundamental human need and survival beneath the conceptual layer of the work.
SDG 4 – Quality Education
Aligns with the emphasis on complexity, discovery, interpretation, and learning through exploration.
SDG 13 – Climate Action
Connects to the tension Ethan notes between nature and humanity’s urge to control it.
SDG synthesis
The SDGs frame this AR island as ethically aware as well as creatively ambitious. The imagined space is concerned not only with perception and authorship, but with human need, learning, and ecological responsibility. 
Final Summary
Taken together, these selections suggest an AR world grounded in introspection, complexity, and creative control. The media establish a tone of darkness, slowness, and emotional connection, while the items point to expression, layered meaning, and active world-building. The SDGs reinforce a vision of AR as thoughtful, educational, and environmentally conscious.
