Guardians of Naxos

The Lovers Hike and The Mystery of the Pirate Grave are examples of augmented reality hikes offered for free to tourists by the 'Guardians of Naxos' to generate support for protective measures and sustainable tourism initiatives. The project demonstrates a storytelling pipeline that enables high school students of Naxos to contribute stories to the initiative.
For this project, my task was to research and implement generative AI systems to produce consistent visuals within augmented reality, tailored to the historical and cultural context of Naxos, Greece. By creating custom LoRas models trained on culturally relevant datasets of locations and costumes, we aimed to authentically recreate scenes from post-medieval Naxos. We took pictures of the actors without costumes and, through the combination of the trained LoRa, inpaint, and openPose modules, I used to costume and stylize the actors in traditional outfits. This approach fostered media innovation and sustainable tourism practices in the island city.
The Guardians of Naxos Hikes are designed by students and teachers of Naxos highschools in collaboration with a joint research project by Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences (Prof. Dr. Nikos Leandros and Dr. Panagiotis Kapos of the Department of Communication, Media and Culture), Cyprus University of Technology) (Ass. Prof. Doros Polydorou of the Media Arts & Design Research Lab) and Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences (h_da) (Prof. Claudius Coenen and Prof. Georg Struck of the Department of Media).



The Guardians of Naxos Hikes are designed by students and teachers of Naxos highschools in collaboration with a joint research project by Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences (Prof. Dr. Nikos Leandros and Dr. Panagiotis Kapos of the Department of Communication, Media and Culture), Cyprus University of Technology) (Ass. Prof. Doros Polydorou of the Media Arts & Design Research Lab) and Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences (h_da) (Prof. Claudius Coenen and Prof. Georg Struck of the Department of Media).