War Children: Using AR in a Documentary Context

摘要

The goal of the project “War Children” is to tell stories of survivors of the Second World War by means of augmented reality. We want to make memories persistent, accessible and comprehensible to users that do not yet have access to these memories, e.g., digital natives. The application of immersive technologies provides us with new ways to tell stories about the past in an empathic way by augmenting the narration with audio-visual assets. In order to provide an immersive reference to the story, the user can visually place a contemporary witness in his environment using a mobile device. As a result, the user can listen to the respective witness sitting in front of him / her and beginning to describe their wartime experiences as a child. During the narration, the user's real environment is augmented by AR content that illustrates the narration. The project was developed as the result of an iterative design process for WDR, a German public broadcasting institution. An initial prototype was presented at the re:publica 2018 festival to the public and tested by more than 500 people. 160 of them were interviewed and provided feedback about their experience.