Even seventy years later, the Holocaust is still a sensitive subject for many people, especially those that lived through it. That doesn't mean however, that it doesn't deserve to be remembered. As the old saying goes (though I might very well be paraphrasing); “Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” To keep the memories of the Holocaust and it's victims alive, the York-based consultancy Bright White is designing a series of interactive Holocaust testimonials for the National Holocaust Centre and Museum in Nottinghamshire.
“Interact” will allow visitors to the National Holocaust Museum to pose unique questions to 3D renderings of actual Holocaust survivors
The £1.25 million project, simply called “Interact,” will allow museum visitors to pose unique questions to 3D renderings of actual Holocaust survivors projected onto a bespoke stage. The idea it that by giving visitors a palpable sense of actually conversing with a survivor, visitors will feel a deeper connection to the tragic events that unfolded during the second great war. Using a database of 1,200 pre-recorded answers, a 4K digital projection of each survivor responds to general and personal questions as though the survivor were actually in the room with them. It's a wonderfully modern way to tackle the sobering task of preserving the museum’s existing programme of question and answer panels with Holocaust survivors.
The projections will be shown in the Pears Auditorium, formerly known as the Memorial Hall, where panels with Holocaust survivors have been held previously
The projections will be shown in the Pears Auditorium, formerly known as the Memorial Hall, where panels with Holocaust survivors have been held previously. The museum expects nearly 100 people to be able to view the projections at any one time in the room’s theatre-style seating. Using a panel that included religious experts, schoolchildren and others, Bright White and the university’s experts methodically selected 1,200 questions based on each survivor’s life timeline. After generating questions, the consultancy interviewed each survivor over the course of one week and recorded their answers using high-definition 3D video recorders. Bright White has already interviewed nine survivors for the project, and will interview the 10th survivor next month.
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As for how the setup works, it's actually surprisingly simple. When a visitor asks a question, the software analyses it, and matches it with the closest answer to play back the relevant audio, with questions matched using keywords and categorised by level of confidence. If the software is positive of the answer to the question, the rendering will respond immediately. If the software detects a close answer, the survivor will answer with the closest possible response. If there is no answer to the question, the rendering will prompt the viewer to ask the question again, in a different manner, giving the impression of an actual conversation (well, an actual conversation with a hard-of-hearing pensioner anyway).
When a visitor asks a question, the software analyses it, and matches it with the closest answer to play back the relevant audio
Bright White managing director Chris Walker said of the project: “The survivors are 80, 85, 90 years old and soon there will be a day when it’s impossible to keep the programme going. It’s very important in terms of learning from history that we try our best to make sure that people in the future have the ability to ask questions of witnesses to these kinds of world events. In this case it’s Holocaust survivors, but this process could be repeated for anybody who has witnessed a world event and has something to tell. This isn’t about creating videos of Holocaust testimonies. That has been done before. This is about creating interactive testimony; the difference being that depending on your background and your experience, you will pick up on something different from the person sitting next to you in the audience. Everybody has a different experience in life and therefore the stories survivors tell chimes in different ways with different people.”
Using a database of 1,200 pre-recorded answers, a 4K digital projection of each survivor responds to general and personal questions
Interact received funding from the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts, jointly funded by the innovation charity NESTA, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. There has also been financial support from the National Lottery via Arts Council England. Professor Minhua Ma, associate dean and professor of Digital Media and Games at the University of Huddersfield, contributed research and co-authored a paper during the course of the project’s development. Interact also involves a collaboration with The Shoa Foundation, and the Institute of Creative Technologies, University of Southern California and Conscience Display, Los Angeles. Private display testing will begin next month after a three-year production process, but the museum has yet to set a release date for public viewing.
Benjamin Hiorns is a freelance writer and struggling musician from Kidderminster in the UK.
