EXPERIENCES
The EMOTIVE experiences explore digital storytelling, tangible objects, social interaction between visitors and more experiential approaches, all combined to foster the emotional connection between the visitors with the sites.
EMOTIVE mixed reality digital storytelling: Onsite experience
‘Ebutius’s Dilemma’ is an interactive character-driven exploration of "The Antonine Wall: Rome's Final Frontier" display developed for the Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow. It was initially designed using the Storyboard Editor and then transferred to the Visual Scenario Editor where more advanced features were added, like manipulation of 3D models enabling visitors to view hidden details of the objects on display. It tells the story of a Roman centurion who left his mark on the Antonine Wall in Scotland, the Roman Empire's most northerly frontier and part of a Unesco World Heritage Site. While exploring this experience in pairs or on their own, users in the museum discover objects related to different strands of the story which have emotional relevance to Ebutius. The story also resonates with today's visitors by using universal themes that transcend time, like love, family, and work.
EMOTIVE mixed reality digital storytelling: Onsite facilitator-led experience
‘Views on Verecunda’s Life: A Digital Window to the Scottish Roman Past’ is a multi-part experience which combines immersive VR and AR features to contextualise the objects on display. It integrates social interaction, designed for four concurrent users who are encouraged by a facilitator to work together to critically examine the past. It aims to challenge stereotypes about life in the Frontiers of the Roman Empire, and link with users’ life today through exploring issues of identity, in the past and today. The experience focuses on the story of a local Caledonian slave girl, Verecunda, who worked at the Roman commander's house in Bar Hill fort, one of the Antonine Wall sites. After getting to know each other, users are immersed in a VR environment introducing Verecunda's life in the Bar Hill fort. It introduces four lively characters who knew Verecunda at different stages of her life. Users then move through the museum display guided by one of the four characters (developed with the Visual Scenario Editor). They are encouraged to explore real objects viewing these through mobile phones that act like ‘magic windows’, with Augmented Reality interactions bringing the objects and their role to life. Finally, users share what they have discovered about Verecunda and discuss what shaped her identity.
EMOTIVE mixed reality digital storytelling: Online Virtual experience
A virtual version of ‘Ebutius's Dilemma’ was also designed for remote online visitors, recreating the museum space with a 360° panorama using the Floor Plan Editor and the Web Experiencing System. This retained the story-based approach, which allows online users to choose their own path through the experience while they navigate their way through the virtual representation of the display to locate objects pertinent to the story. The experience allows both a) remote users from around the world to access the story and get a feel of visiting the gallery virtually, as well as b) visitors who have used the on-site version of ‘Ebutius’s Dilemma’ to access this virtual one after they have left the museum, or to use it in preparation for their visit, making it a powerful visitor engagement and learning tool.
EMOTIVE VR Experience
Through a multi-user virtual reality experience, participants are taken on a collaborative adventure through the UNESCO Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük. This experience fosters interaction and emotional learning between pairs of individuals who are tasked with enacting forms of care. Together, participants engage with some of the social practices once common at Çatalhöyük, from artistic expression of group identity to home repair and burial customs. The experience invites participants to reflect upon human relatedness across time and space, and to think more deeply about our impact on the world.
EMOTIVE Digital Education Kit
The Exploration of Egalitarianism Digital Education Kit explores the Stone Age site of Çatalhöyük and its egalitarian society. Through the use of 3D-printed replicas of real artefacts, a virtual tour of reconstructed houses, a ChatBot, and an interactive activity, students experience what egalitarianism is, how it is reflected in the archaeology, and what it might have meant to live in an egalitarian community. This Kit is designed for use by Key Stage 3 students (ages 11-14), but can successfully engage young people who are anywhere between the ages of 8-16.
Visit the experience website here.
EMOTIVE Bots of Conviction
Can a chatbot enable us to change our conceptions, to be critically reflective? EMOTIVE’s ‘bots of conviction’, ChatÇat and Bo (which are accompanied by our ‘How-to Guide’ for building chatbots), are designed as provocative bots for use by both single individuals and groups. These are simple rules-based chatbots whose communicative design works to foster in users challenging – but productive – forms of dialogue and reflection. They enable heritage sites to launch into conversations on complex topics (e.g. death, wealth, gender equality, privacy) and, ultimately, to solicit specific pro-social actions from the users they converse with.
Visit the EMOTIVE Chatbots website here.
EMOTIVE Family and Group Dialogues with 3D moulds
These short sessions for families and groups focus on making replicas of ancient material objects and, through engagement with tactile technologies, sparking critical conversation about the relationship between past artefacts and present-day values. The sessions start with the creation of objects using novel 3D moulding tools (‘MetaMoulds’). Groups make their objects together using modelling clay, personalise them, and then venture into dialogue with a human facilitator who guides discussion between participants. The past has much to tell us about how we live today and how we could live differently in the future. We explore these ideas in 20-minute sessions - and participants can take home their replicas, carrying on the conversation into the future!
EMOTIVE's Visitor-led Tours
EMOTIVE’s visitor-led tours aim to challenge the traditional guided tour’s model of one-way, guide-visitor communication. Instead, they use the guided tour as a platform for meaningful democratic dialogue between people of different backgrounds and beliefs. Designed for York Minster, one of the largest gothic cathedrals in Northern Europe attracting over 600,000 visitors per year, groups of 6-8 strangers are encouraged to debate contemporary issues framed through stories about the Minster’s past. Aided by digital devices and a human facilitator, participants are first tasked to read aloud the story of the Minster to one another before being asked to choose a ‘theme’, e.g. ‘love’, ‘health’, ‘pilgrimage’. Their chosen theme leads them to an area of the building where they collectively discover a story about the Minster’s past and then perform group-based storytelling, using objects around the building and their devices. The activities are enjoyable, yet provocative, moderated by facilitated dialogue which challenges prejudices, breaks down barriers and fosters mutual respect between participants.
