Public Storytelling with Augmented Reality
This Knight Lab project explores the power of Augmented Reality (AR) for public storytelling. Participating students will collaborate with conceptual artist, Bradley McCallum, to create an innovative exhibition that honors the life of freelance war correspondent James Wright Foley.
In the wake of Foley’s public murder by ISIS in 2014, Bradley McCallum was granted access by the Foley family to James’ personal archive of fieldnotes and hard drives. From this archive, McCallum created a series of multimedia oil paintings that memorialize moments of James Foley’s journalistic career.
Students will also work closely with Northwestern IT’s Media and Technology Innovation group, who have extensive experience in creating with AR. This work will contribute to an exhibition at planned for 2024.
Faculty and Staff Leads
Project Details
2023 Fall
Important Questions
- Which archival materials best bring context to the artwork and the subject?
- What user experience issues are raised by adding an AR layer to a gallery exhibition?
- What are the tradeoffs involved in considering AR features on a per-artwork basis versus something more integrated?
Sample Milestones
- Weeks 1-3: Meet with Bradley McCallum and NUIT Media and Technology Innovation partners. Get familiar with the artwork and the archival materials. Explore prior art in augmented reality exhibitions.
- Weeks 4-7: Explore ideas for AR extensions of various art works. Devise lo-fi prototypes to identify opportunities and challenges. Begin developing style guide.
- Weeks 8-10: Organize prototypes and style guide into a transferable document to hand off to the core project team. Draft a proposal for AR aspect of exhibition and present it to partners.
Outcome
For this project, Knight Lab students will help develop an AR experience that integrates documentary footage and interviews from James Foley’s friends and colleagues within an exhibition of Bradley McCallum’s paintings. Fall Quarter students will develop a proposal, style guide and low-fidelity prototype experience that will be implemented in subsequent production of the exhibition. Interested students may have the opportunity to continue work on the project, either in a future Knight Lab Studio session or in some other capacity.