Hidden Rippon Lea is an immersive sound and augmented reality experience delivered through an app, which explores memory, plant and animal life, infrastructure, and waters at Rippon Lea Estate in Nairm (Melbourne). The project works to challenge the colonial legacies of the site – to recognize that it is Boon Wurrung Country, connected to a wider ecological and hydrological landscape.

We used counter-pace as a tactic to invoke a disruption to linear time. Audio and visual elements are introduced relative to the visitor’s location on the site, inviting the visitor to slow down and attune to their sensory experience. Soundscapes in the app unfold in a non-linear way, influenced by the way the visitor moves through and interacts with the site. A counter-pace is evoked through the diversity of sound-based rhythms from Rippon Lea that make up the soundscapes. These rhythms may be short, like the life cycle of an insect, or long like the geological movements of the earth. This rhythm diversity invokes the cyclical times of Country, like that of the Iilk (eels) who journey from the Coral Sea to Nairm, now traveling through the city’s stormwater systems to reach the Rippon Lea Lake.