Approaching “Dark Heritage” Through Essential Questions: An Interactive Digital Storytelling Museum Experience
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The potential of digital storytelling in cultural heritage has been widely recognized as an effective technique for communicating heritage interpretation to the public. In this paper, we explore its application in a "dark heritage" setting—a cultural heritage site associated with death, atrocity and human depravity. Although literature within the field of dark heritage emphasizes a fascination with death as the main (if not sole) motive for visiting, according to some studies and the visitor study we performed in the context of our work, motives are in fact varied, and include a desire to learn and understand the history presented and an interest in having an emotional heritage experience. Borrowing from education, we use the notion of "essential questions" as a tool to lead to a deeper understanding of human nature. Following a user-centered design methodology, we develop an interactive digital storytelling experience for the Criminology Museum of the University of Athens. The resulting experience is adapted so as to be tested on-site and through the web. We conclude the work with our insight on guidelines for sites with similar characteristics as well as addressing open issues and challenges for the application of digital storytelling in dark-heritage contexts.
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Approaching “Dark Heritage” Through Essential Questions: An Interactive Digital Storytelling Museum Experience
- 1. Approaching “DarkHeritage” Through EssentialQuestions: An Interactive Digital Storytelling Museum Experience Akrivi Katifori1,2,KlaoudiaMarsellaRestrepoLopez1,DimitraPetousi1,Manos Karvounis1,2,Vassilis Kourtis1,2,Maria Roussou1,YannisIoannidis1,2 1National Kapodistrian University of Athens 2ATHENA ResearchCenter,Greece MW19
- 2. Who weare Narralive 2-6 April2019 MuseWeb2019- Boston 2
- 3. What we do 2-6 April2019 MuseWeb2019 - Boston 3 Explore concepts aroundDigital Experiences for Cultural Heritage InteractiveDigitalStorytelling CollaborativeExperiences FacilitatedDialogue VirtualVisitingasa SchoolActivity
- 4. Storyboard → Easy to use → Templatebased → Allows for branchingnarratives 2-6 April2019 MuseWeb2019 - Boston 4
- 5. Applications 2-6 April2019 MuseWeb2019- Boston 5
- 6. Dark Heritage* 2-6 April2019 MuseWeb2019- Boston 6 * alsoknown as“difficultheritage”or“dissonantheritage” “culturalheritagethatisassociated withrealandcommodified sites of atrocity,death, disaster, humandepravity, tragedy,humansuffering, andsites ofbarbarism and genocide” (Kuznik,2018)imagefromWikipedia
- 7. “Milkingthemacabre”* 2-6 April2019 MuseWeb2019 - Boston 7 * Dann, G. (1994).“Tourismthenostalgiaindustryof the future.” “withincontemporarysociety,people regularlyconsume deathandsufferingintouristic form, seeminglyintheguiseofeducation and/orentertainment” - Stone,P.(2005).“DarkTourismConsumption–Acallforresearch.” Later research suggest that visitors’ motives vary and include: a desire tolearn and understand thehistory presented havingan emotional heritage experience - Biran,A., Poria, Y. & Oren, G. (2011).“SoughtExperiencesatDarkHeritageSites.” - Rami KhalilI., Erdinç Ç . (2013).“Understandingvisitor’smotivationatsitesofdeathanddisaster:thecaseofformertransitcamp Westerbork,the Netherlands.”
- 8. NEXT SLIDE MAY CONTAIN SHOCKING IMAGES!
- 9. Athens University Criminology Museum 2-6 April2019 MuseWeb2019 - Boston 9
- 10. The founder's vision • Intrigued by the criminal’s mind • Seeking a deeper understanding of the human nature • Founded the criminology museum asa placefor research and knowledge transfer 2-6 April2019 MuseWeb2019 - Boston 10 Ioannis Georgiades founder ofthe museum
- 11. 2-6 April2019 MuseWeb2019 - Boston 11
- 12. User Study • “Open Day” event* • Observation of the guided tours given by experts • 137 visitors briefly interviewed 2-6 April2019 MuseWeb2019 - Boston 12 *happeningonce ayear photo:KlaoudiaMarsellaRestrepoLopez
- 13. User Study • Most ofthe visitors (86%) fully met their expectations • Comfortable with the scientific terminology • All stayedmore to browse through the gallery freely • Fewfelt discomfort with some of the exhibits 2-6 April2019 MuseWeb2019- Boston 13 31.39% 8.76% 0.73% 8.03% 24.82% 0.00% 5.00% 10.00% 15.00% 20.00% 25.00% 30.00% 35.00% What visitors didn’t like Smallspace Littletime Notenoughinfo Lackoftech Other Other explained: • lack of curatorial work • closed to the public • lack of accessibility measures
- 14. Whybuild a digital experience? By building a digital experiencewe… • make the museummore open to the public • apply a new museological approach that will foster meaningful interactions with the museum 2-6 April2019 MuseWeb2019 - Boston 14 Main reason: • Uni Staff can’tcope with the demand for museumvisits
- 15. Essential questions • Relatable • Open-ended • Intellectually engaging • Requiring high-order thinking 2-6 April2019 MuseWeb2019 - Boston 15
- 16. Essential questions -Whatmotivescouldleadapersontotakeuparms? -Whatreasonswouldleadsomeonetotaketheirownlife? -Shouldthestatehavethepowertoenforcethedeathpenalty? 2-6 April2019 MuseWeb2019 - Boston 16
- 17. Experience design • Overarching theme: application of scientific methodology into criminal investigatory practice Two complementary experiences • “Following themysterious evidence” • 15-minute interactive digital storytelling experience • “Theexhibitstelltheirstories” • 20-90 minute free-form exploration experience 2-6 April2019 MuseWeb2019 - Boston 17
- 18. ”Followingthe mysterious evidence” 2-6 April2019 MuseWeb2019 - Boston 18
- 19. ”Theexhibitstelltheirstories” 2-6 April2019 MuseWeb2019- Boston 19 • Therole of illegal substancesand the “misfits” of Athens in the early 20th century • Counterfeitand fraud • Guns and organised crime • Death penalty and the use of guillotine in Greece • [much more …]
- 20. On-going evaluation • 14 visitors tried the experience, so far • Positive feedback in general, but surely no conclusive results • Most prominent problems • Difficult to navigate and locate the exhibits • Immediate focus on the app feels restrictive 2-6 April2019 MuseWeb2019 - Boston 20
- 21. Outcomes Essentialquestions… • inform the experience concept and scenario • help with the selection of interpretation material • promote visitor engagement through reflection anddialogue 2-6 April2019 MuseWeb2019 - Boston 21
- 22. Future Work • Test possible solutions on navigation issues • e.g.boards + QR/NFC • Test the experience with groups of visitors and promote dialogue through the essential questions • Incorporate evaluation tools into the digital experience 2-6 April2019 MuseWeb2019- Boston 22
- 23. MW19 Thanksto the Criminology Museum staff and collaborating experts: • Dr. Maria Stefanidou-Loutsidou • Dr. Constantinos Moraitis • Dr. Zoe Sakki • Dr. Sotiris Athanasellis Partly funded by:
Editor's Notes
- Related to ”dark tourism” (or “black tourism” or “grief tourism”) which sometimes include entertainment activities, as opposed to cultural heritage
- Small museum Situated inside the Faculty of Medicine Part of the Laboratory of Forensics and Toxicology GUILOTINE GUILOTINE
- Georgiades was a gun enthusiast, avid collector of crime scene evidence and Olympic Fencing medalist in the 1896 Athens Olympic games, as well as a dedicated researcher and philanthropist.
- closed to the public limited to no museological work just a few labels here and there stories behind the objects remain hidden to the potential visitor The museums approach strong awareness among the Board members (who also serve as guides when tours are programmed) that shocking material is not to be blatantly exposed to the general public emphasis on academic presentation, leaving the human stories behind the exhibits silent, mostly due to the limited time of the guided tours and to a shortage of personnel The above scientific approach, consistent with the founder’s vision, seems to be a conscious direction for the museum, ensuring a clear decision for fostering historical understanding and institutional education, without directly responding to the present fascination for the macabre.
- Staff (Forensics and Toxicology researchers) is overwhelmed by the demand for guided tours
- Grant Wiggins, Jay McTighe (2005) Relatable to personal experiences, views of the world and issues that feel relevant to people’s lives Open-ended, i.e., there are no right or wrong answers Intellectually engaging and able to spark meaningful discussion among a group of people Requiring high-order thinking: analysis, inference, debate
- Relatable to personal experiences, views of the world and issues that feel relevant to people’s lives Open-ended, i.e., there are no right or wrong answers Intellectually engaging and able to spark meaningful discussion among a group of people Requiring high-order thinking: analysis, inference, debate
- Selected exhibits, seen from different perspectives: What is the role of the exhibit in criminal science? Anecdotal stories about the exhibit General reflections for the essential questions related to the collection and particular exhibit
- Difficulties with finding users to try it, since we have to enrol the staff in the process, which is not ideal. Will try to incorporate evaluation tools into the app to catch random visitors. Navigation can be solved non-digitally by marking the exhibits with boards. QR/NFC to be used if proved to be helpful. We’ll try having them wondering freely, before handing them the app.