Virtual Viewing Experiences: Immersive Visualizations of Early-Twentieth Century Home Cinema

Poster for the DH Benelux conference 2023 in Brussels, Belgium.

How to simulate hands-on media practices in a virtual environment using 3D-represented cultural heritage objects in such a way that the material characteristics of the objects and their usages become part of the virtual and immersive user experience? In this project, we have explored this question by focusing on two media historical objects: the Kinora motion picture viewer (ca. 1907) and the Pathé Baby 9.5mm film projector (ca. 1924) as early-twentieth-century technologies of home cinema. The application development was carried out in four stages: (1) digitization, (2) conceptualization, (3) contextualization, and (4) digital storytelling.

The project was developed within the framework of a research internship at the Open University of the Netherlands in collaboration with Maastricht University, the Netherlands. It was conducted in support of the project CRAFTED: Enrich and promote traditional and contemporary crafts, co-financed by the Connecting Europe Facility of the European Commission.

Video demonstration of the application: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UnoPSDZCiw.
Application: https://zenodo.org/record/8011420