Auckland filmmaker and creative technology founder Alex Davila has turned Howick Beach into the setting for one of his latest AI-assisted history projects, using short-form video to reimagine the arrival of the Royal New Zealand Fencible Corps in the late 1840s.
The Times reported on 5 July that Davila, creator of the Time Travel New Zealand social channels, has produced a cinematic video that imagines the Fencibles arriving at Howick Beach. The article says the project carries personal meaning because Davila's wife is originally from Howick, and because the suburb's Fencible references are still visible in everyday place names.
This is today's required founder-focused story for The Auckland Loop because it is about a local founder using new technology to tell a local story. CONICAL's own site identifies Davila, also known professionally as Alejandro Davila, as founder and producer of the Auckland creative technology studio. His consulting page says he works across interactive media, gaming, AI, virtual production, augmented reality, virtual reality and storytelling.
The project sits at an interesting point in Auckland's cultural life. AI-generated imagery can be lazy, synthetic and forgettable when it is used as generic decoration. Davila's Howick work is more specific: it starts with a place, a local history question, visits to sites, archival references and a desire to make people curious about the suburb beneath their feet.
Howick's Fencible history is not a vague colonial backdrop. The Howick Historical Village explains that Fencibles and their families travelled from the United Kingdom between 1847 and 1852, settling in Howick, Panmure, Otahuhu and Onehunga. Their arrival shaped early European settlement in parts of Auckland, leaving traces in streets, community names and local memory. The challenge is that many people know the word without knowing the story.
Davila's video format speaks to that gap. A two-minute clip will not replace historical research, museum work or careful teaching, but it can make a resident pause on a familiar beach and ask what happened there before the suburb looked the way it does now. In local history, that first spark often matters.
The Times article says Davila is clear that the videos are not intended to be perfect restorations. He describes them as cinematic recreations designed to give people a feeling for the past and encourage further curiosity. That distinction matters. AI historical imagery can mislead if it is presented as documentary proof. It is safer when it is framed as interpretation, with enough transparency to point viewers back to records, museums and historians.
For Auckland's creative sector, the story is also a practical example of where AI may be useful. It is not simply replacing artists or historians. Used carefully, it can help package local stories in a format that travels through phones, short videos and social feeds, then sends audiences back toward real places and primary sources.
The stronger test will be what happens after the novelty fades. If Time Travel New Zealand keeps linking its recreations to local institutions, archival material and community voices, it could become a useful bridge between heritage and digital storytelling. If it drifts into spectacle without context, the work becomes less valuable.
For now, Davila's Howick project gives east Auckland a relevant founder story: a local operator using modern production tools to make an old shoreline feel worth looking at again.
