Manchester Museum – Release
An AR experience animating butterfly specimens in the museum's insect gallery.
AR development / exhibition design
Partners: Manchester Museum
Outputs: AR exhibition experience
Created for the reopening of Manchester Museum's insect gallery, Release allowed visitors to hover a tablet over real butterfly specimens and see them animate and fly on screen. The concept explored the idea of releasing the spirit of insects from museum displays.
Museum interpretation
Natural history museums preserve specimens, freezing them in time. Release explored what it might mean to give those specimens digital life.
The experience
Visitors used tablets to scan butterfly specimens in display cases. On screen, the butterflies animated, stretched their wings, and flew — a poetic gesture of digital resurrection.
Death and preservation
The project asked questions about museums, preservation and the relationship between specimens and the living creatures they once were.