Shanghai Bund

The Bund has a special role in the Shanghai's modern history, serving as an economic and touristic center for over a century. It is exceptional for its history of architecture, the history of banking, and the history of Shanghai’s quick expansion. As well, the Bund has a special photographic history. Few places in the world have such a quantity of architectural and panoramic photography from the early 1900s. As the present-day center of Shanghai’s world-class cultural sector, the Bund, as well, has special opportunities for partnerships with local companies and institutions that seek to promote and educate on the subject of Shanghai.

People's Square

People's Square, at the center of Shanghai, has a visually intriguing story. It was a racecourse and central site of foreign entertainment and then converted to a central public park after the revolution. An augmented reality experience of the site could bring to visual-life this often told story of change, and its connection with the nearby historical architecture and Shanghai History Museum.

French Concession

The French Concession is part of Shanghai’s special cosmopolitan identity. Present-day tourists, taking pictures along the lanes of the concession, wonder what life looked like on those streets when these buildings were constructed. There is a special opportunity to scour the archive for clusters of historical documentation focusing on some of the major international avenues (such as Middle HuaiHai Road, and East Jinling Road.

Research

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Projects begin with searching out opportunities in emerging media, and research into the historical media archive. Working in consultation with archivists, historians, and curators, exceptional pieces or collections of media are identified and workshopped with new technology.

A few examples:

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Chicago00: 1915 Eastland Disaster—the opportunity was presented by a historical event in downtown Chicago (a tragic boat accident in 1915) that was extensively documented: more than 300 photographs and multiple newsreel films. The events took place on a single city block, with easy pedestrian access along the city’s new Riverwalk. To take advantage of this, an augmented reality app was created, where audiences on-site could see the historical photographs, superimposed on the site where they were taken.

 

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Chicago00: 1933 World’s Fair—the 1933 fair was heavily documented and an important historical event in the city’s history. Almost all of the buildings were demolished after the fair, and the site is now a public park and museum campus covering several miles. Of particular interest were aerial photographs taken from the fair’s Skyride (a 191 meter tall ride across the fair). To match the photographs, VR drone-photography was produced, matching the historical locations, and a narrated virtual reality tour of the site was published as APP, and also to the Youtube VR and Oculus distribution platforms.

 

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Chicago00: 1893 World’s Fair—the site of the historic fair is now a park that borders the University of Chicago. Exceptional aerial photographs taken from the windows of the original 1893 Ferris Wheel presented a special opportunity. Drone VR photography matching the path of the original wheel was captured, and a 3D animated model of the ferris wheel created to match the historical photographs. A narrated VR tour, as well as a web-portal mapped site were created to distribute the story.

 

Consultation with Government & Institutions

1. The selection of historic sites, stories, and images is conducted through consultation with historians, archives, and museums.

2. As projects are developed and reach the stage of proposals and visualizations, the team seeks consulation, approvals, and promotional interest from:

   1. District government

   2. Tourist bureaus

   3. Documentary Bureau

3. Before publication and distribution, all stake holders are consulted.

Sharing with Audiences

 

The Future Museum Studio is always seeking new distribution channels and possibilities as media technology changes. Virtual reality experiences have been published as APPs and through VR video and still distribution channels, and maps of the productions have been shared through self-hosted platforms.

Web portal APP

The studio has newly produced a custom API web platform that supports mapped VR imagery, and has partnered with Veer.tv, a leading Chinese virtual reality distribution company, for future VR video distribution. Audiences are able to access VR historical imagery based on their GPS location and compass-orientation, facillitating AR-style tours of sites.

Cycloramas

The studio is currently producing interactive cyclorama experiences of antique panoramic paintings and photographs. Using VR headsets or web browsers, audiences can zoom and explore gigapixel images and trigger audio narratives embedded in the image.

Monumental screens

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In addition, exhibitions and public screen displays are an important area of development for the studio. We are currently developing new design-methods for touchless interfaces for VR without using heads-up-displays, specifically for in-gallery exhibitions of VR content, and for public-space displays on monumental screens.