Dr. Michelle Ferrier worked with graduate students at Elon University to recreate the Woolworths museum in Greensboro, the site of the start of the sit-in movement. She provides a theoretical framework for planning immersive design environments with an emotional prick.

1. Reality Thrice Removed
Reimagining the Woolworth’s Sit-Ins in Second Life
Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Elon University

2. Creating Lieux
de Memoire
French historian Pierre
Nora describes lieux de
memoire…
“Where memory
crystallizes and secretes
itself at a particular
historical moment, a
turning point where
consciousness of a break
with the past is bound up
with the sense that the
memory has been torn.”
February 1, 1960: Site of the
Woolworth’s sit-in, downtown
Greensboro. Now the site of the
International Civil Rights Center &
Museum (ICRC&M).

3. Reality Thrice Removed
① Original sit-in with the
Greensboro Four on Feb. 1
② Memory of the event by
surviving members of the
Greensboro Four,
eyewitnesses, lunch
counter workers and
others
③ Recreation of the
Woolworth’s lunch counter
in the ICRM&C, Feb. 1, 2010.
Feb. 1, 2010: Opening of the
International Civil Rights Center &
Museum with busts of the
Greensboro Four.

4. Reality Thrice Removed
④ The re-imagined ICRC&M in Second Life (SL) :
“ The American Civil Rights Museum”

5. Virtual Environments
Course Goals
Second Life is a 3-D virtual world. Students will
recreate the corner of Elm Street and February One
Place where the museum now stands using
ethnographic methods within SL.
Our goal is to explore the culture, conversations, and
experience of the 1960 sit-in at the Woolworth lunch
counter and other civil rights events for virtual
patrons. We seek to educate a larger audience about
the events and spark conversations that confront and
heal a divisive past.

6. Creating
Lieux de Memoire
Visually: Studied texts such as newspapers, videos,
photographs of the event and people; studied the
new museum; sought images and icons of civil rights
movement.
Kinetically: Designs for the space required
understanding the shift in dimensions in SL and
avatar movement. Learned scripting to create special
effects.
Verbally: Listened to videos, interviews and stories
told by Greensboro Four and others.

7. Benefits of Second Life
Constructs
Question:
What does the
virtual help us do
that we cannot do
in Real Life (RL)?
“Virtual worlds make
possible, practical and
without real life
repercussions the
visual personifications
of our multiple
identities.” (Pamela G.
Taylor, Journal of
Virtual Worlds
Research, Vol. 2, No. 1)

8. Challenges of SL
Environment: Identity
The avatar-creation
process involves selecting
gender, age, ethnicity,
outfit, accessories and
facial expression.
“Newbies” to SL are
characterized by their
unsophisticated clothing,
preset hair and awkward
movements online.
“On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog,”
-- (Steiner 1993) from New Yorker cartoon.
“In Second Life, you can be a dog.” – (Michelle Ferrier)

9. Virtual World:
Fashion Mall

10. Ethnographic Research
in Second Life

11. Ethnographic Research
in Second Life

12. Offline: ICRC&M
Research for the build included
taking extensive measurements of
the footprint of the museum and
photos of the exterior and interior.

13. Socially Constructed
Realities
Shakespeare, Baudrillard
and others have argued
about the elasticity of the
concept of reality. The
cultural world is a
construct.
We wanted to examine the
constructs of museum and
sit-in.
① Re-imagine a museum
experience …not just
recreate, but re-conceive.
② Reconstruct an experience
of racial
discrimination…not just
recreate the lunch counter
display.

14. Forming Collective
Memory
Paul Ricoeur says that
through storytelling and
testimonies of the
experiences of past events,
a community can form a
collective memory. (2004)
Communities also use
artifacts to represent their
collective memories. These
artifacts are objectified in
the community’s culture
and collective identity and
include symbols, signs,
memorials, rituals and
others. (Papargyris, 2009)
The Modern Museum

15. Re-conceptualizing “Museum”
The American Civil Rights Museum in Second Life is conceived of as
four distinct spaces: A portrait gallery, a jazz lounge, an exterior
garden and a “museum within a museum” – the Woolworths.

16. Virtual Tour: Entrance

17. Virtual Tour: Lobby

18. Virtual Tour:
Great Hall

19. Virtual Tour:
Great Hall

20. Virtual Tour:
Great Hall

21. Reconceptualizing the Museum
The Jazz Lounge serves as a point of departure from the typical
museum experience. In this immersive environment, visitors are
treated to music and are encouraged to sit or dance. They become
part of the “exhibit.”

22. Virtual Tour:
Jazz Lounge

23. Virtual Tour:
Building the Gardens

24. Virtual Tour:
The Exterior Gardens

25. Virtual Tour:
Gardens from the Sea
The flags, which waive in the virtual wind, “provoke our active
participation in that history” says Melvin Dixon.

26. Virtual Tour:
Museum Within Museum

27. Reimagining the
ICRC&M Exhibits
The Lunch Counter The Hall of Shame

28. Virtual Tour:
The Lunch Counter
Just as in the real museum, we’ve embedded a video of the events
for visitors in the middle window.

29. Virtual Tour:
The Lunch Counter
When avatars sit at the lunch counter, the waitress speaks one of three
racially charged scripts saying the avatar is not welcome.

30. Virtual Tour:
Hall of Shame
The Hall of Shame recreates the original and includes flashing
images and a floor bathed with red light.

31. Virtual Tour:
Hall of Shame
The ceiling height is lowered
and sharp turns and angles
create a river of blood. The
design makes it difficult for
avatars to move freely,
creating confinement and
stress.

32. Constructing Emotion
The constricting environment of the Hall of Shame contradicts the soaring, bright
hope that is present in the portrait gallery. The object, says David Blight, is “to
invoke the emotional chords of memory through aesthetic sensibilities.”

33. Reality Thrice
Removed
Dr. Michelle Ferrier
Associate Professor
School of Communications
Elon University
Elon, NC
mferrier@elon.edu
SL: Firenza Mavinelli
Twitter: @mediaghosts