The aim of the workshop is to explore how digital technologies can be shaped to change our perceptions of the past. Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology and image recognition technology will be discussed to demonstrate innovative new platforms available to storytellers, historians and media makers.
The workshop is led by collaborative partners Dr Ruth Farrar, Creative Media and Enterprise Senior Lecturer at Bath Spa University, and Barney Heywood and Lucy Telling from Stand + Stare, who specialise in immersive theatre and interactive design. They will collectively draw upon their portfolios illustrating successful international case studies, which fuse academic research with industry demands to help share stories from the past with new audiences.
Case studies covered in the workshop include: sharing immigrant stories for a sound art commission for the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York; an interactive storytelling app to commemorate Carnegie Hall’s 125th anniversary in New York; and an exhibition at the Barbican for the Royal Shakespeare Company bringing theatrical props to life in London. During a practical exercise, workshop participants will also get an opportunity to interact with image recognition technology by attaching a story to an object to create a unique oral history experience. Ultimately, workshop participants will learn how to innovatively mediate digital technologies to create new modes of understanding history.
