Follow the cat to Drotten's church ruin!
Portfolio Archaeology, cultural heritage, and immersive tech work at the intersection of archaeology, cultural heritage, storytelling and technology. The combination may seem surprising at first, but over time one often discovers the many possibilities.
- Through this we can create really amazing things, such as new ways of experiencing culture, history and science as well as new ways of working in game technology, but it can also create new jobs as well as new products and productions, says Markku Lorentz. Basing an entertaining story telling on facts provides many possibilities. This type of storytelling is more common in book form but here we take it on to the game format, the movie format and as a VR experience.
To create these stories requires storytellers, creators, researchers but also technology.
- Technology is the enabler that allows us to tell stories in a new way. A lot of technology already exists but technological innovations will also be required.
Markku Lorentz shows a sample of what this work might look like in a VR experience where the viewer gets to follow a cat into Drotten's church ruins. The idea was born during a workshop on working with the policy platform team in Slovakia. During a break in the talks, Markku joked about experiencing the city of Rome like a cat in VR.
- The idea stuck with me and I realized that this is not such a stupid idea at all, but that it actually gives a whole new perspective. When you add the twist of visiting the church like a cat, the imagination starts to work. What can I do in a church ruin as a cat? As a cat, I can climb jump, crawl into small spaces and in many ways get an experience that you can't have as a human.
A simple VR movie is now available as a start and it will be developed further. This is done, among other things, in collaboration with students at IKDC and game developers at Grit Academy in Malmö.
-We do different iterations of what the storified and gamified experience could be. We want people to be able to be participants. It's very interesting to see how we can we take data, 3D scans, knowledge and research from archaeology and osteology and work further on this. There are many exciting stories in the material — such as the mystery of the man who received a prominent burial in the church, despite the fact that the femur was damaged, which at the time used to mean that one was not allowed to be buried near the church. Many such stories can now be told using the combination with technology.
Markku Lorentz sees an obvious advantage in using this kind of storytelling in areas of political tension, such as Kosovo. In such a context, the cat perspective fits well because the cat is neutral and not tied to any nationality.
The fact that it was Drotten's church ruin that became the test site for the film is due to the fact that archaeologists Danilo Marco Companaro and Paola Derudas DarkLab, Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, as well as osteologists Blair Joseph Nolan and Anna Tornberg are actively working on this site. Recently scanned by Stefan Lindgren at Lund University Humanist Laboratory area.
During Unexpec work on animating a house facade in Kosovo and bringing stories from the bazaar in Pristina to life will also be shown.
- We want to show what can happen when storytellers and creatives like Anibar or Be Here Then uses data from a cultural-historical site and converts it into an experience, continues Markku Lorentz.
What would be a dream project?
- It would have been really exciting if one had the time, funding and expertise to really make a full-fledged storyfied game in the form of a cat adventure in Drotten! We have a really good idea for both story and mechanics of the game that could make it entertaining. And it's exciting to see what happens when you don't just have a game and a cultural memorial but we actually combine them in a symbiosis. How will people in the future look at Drotten's church ruin if we make a game out of it?
Here you can see the cat video
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