A War Torn Memory Palace: Animating narratives of remembrance

Abstract

ECLOUD WWI (2012) is a custom designed 9-metre by 3.5-metre interactive 3D projection environment and application developed by the Applied Laboratory for Interactive Visualization and Embodiment (ALIVE), City University of Hong Kong in partnership with Europeana's 1914 1918 project. The installation activates over 40,000 images of war memorabilia ascribed to 2,500 individual stories collected (crowdsourced) between 2009 2013, in an ongoing project undertaken across Europe. The installation instantaneously aggregates the digital imagery and its associative metadata within a unique immersive viewing experience. The visualization strategies engaged in ECLOUD WWI signal opportunities for new curatorial practices and embodied museography, re-deploying Internet data in situated museum settings. This paper begins by describing Europeana's data sourcing and collection methods as well as exploring the compelling nature of the memorabilia. ECLOUD WWI applies an integrative pluralist approach to the juxtaposition of image and memory. The discussion then explores participatory framework of the installation, demonstrating the shift from single-source authorship of a linear heritage to shared authorship between user, algorithm and data developed through strategies of recombinatory navigation and interactive narrative. The parallel presentation of historic objects in combination with subjective collected stories presents us the opportunity to redefine the creation of cultural memories. This inter-generational project also offers occasions for generative legacy-building in younger generations as the 2014 centenary of WWI is commemorated in the coming year.