Reimagining the role of museums and archives in guiding our Remembrances of war

A research team led by Scientia Professor Dennis Del Favero from The University of New South Wales, in collaboration with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Department of Veterans Affairs, Australia Council and Museums Victoria, is using breathtaking visual technology to explore new ways to communicate and understand the collective experiences and memories of war.

Bringing together expertise in the media arts and artificial intelligence, with the active participation of defence personnel and their families, the team launched a computer graphic installation, Retrospect: War, Family Afghanistan at Melbourne Museum to mark Remembrance Day in November 2016.

The exhibition, a world-first in interactivity and archiving war stories, aimed to reformulate war memories as an interactive narrative. Using unseen footage from the conflict in Afghanistan, the project is helping Australians understand the impact that service has on the families of defence force personnel, and of what the men and women of the Australian defence forces are experiencing on the ground in conflicts overseas.

By communicating the experience of war using modern day forms of digital communication, and making them more widely accessible through parallel online interactive website, radio and television programs, this project has reimagined the role of museums and archives in guiding our remembrances of war.

	This research project provides access to a vast digital database of veteran and family memories that can be explored across a range of interactive platforms, including online, radio, television and 360-degree 3D interactive cinema.

 

Image: Photo assets within the project database. Image courtesy: ABC Archives.