The WALL
Original Title:
Væggen
Country:
New Zealand
Producer:
Gibson Group Ltd, Mr. Allan Smith
Vaeggen (The Wall) is a massive but mobile interactive video installation on the streets of Copenhagen that allows citizens and visitors to explore in depth the cultural past, present, and future of the city together with its diverse ethnic and cultural communities. Open and inclusive in its philosophy and operating mode, Vaeggen also provides a vehicle for citizens to contribute their own material to the experience via its innovative street level and web user interfaces. Multi-touch and multi-user, the interface uses a strong graphical idiom understandable by all community groups and encourages them to not only explore the 14,000 cultural assets accumulated to date, but to also create new original contents that enrich, comment on or incorporate the heritage collection. The giant on-screen touch keyboards make it possible to email these assets around the world and insert them into their own social media networks. Based initially on the rich heritage collections of the Museum of Copenhagen, Vaeggen is also a public multimedia repository for new discoveries emerging from the large-scale archaeological excavations being undertaken in the old city centre for the next 7 years. In the first half year of operation, Vaeggen has attracted more than 400,000 users, who viewed more than 2 million cultural media assets, sent more than 60,000 digital postcards, and uploaded 2,500 new contributions of their own. The idea is already being taken up by other cities in Scandinavia and attracting interest around the globe.
Jury Evaluation:
Based initially on the rich heritage collections of the Museum of Copenhagen, the WALL is the public multimedia repository for cultural assets emerging from the large-scale archaeological excavations being undertaken in the old city centre for the next 7 years. But the WALL is not about propagating a received version of history; it is open and inclusive in its philosophy and operating mode, so the WALL also provides a vehicle for citizens from the diverse ethnic and cultural communities of the contemporary city to contribute their own material to the experience via its innovative street level and web user interfaces.
What is really so important about this project is the fact that it is turning the tables on the way we gather history and information about ourselves. Originally we relied on historians and institutions to tell us who & what was important and to tell us about our past.
The Museum of Copenhagen is not only opening the doors and turning the equation to give the citizens of Copenhagen the real opportunity to be part of this process & genuinely make a collective project
The fantastically forward thinking of this commission by the Museum is enabling participation as it has not really been conceived of before. Copenhagen, a very old city is having major excavation & development - what better time to mine that history collectively and in a very contemporary way.
That the Museum had the foresight to think ahead so far ahead & that the Gibson Group had the intelligence to come up with the tools is terrific.
Mobile:
Yes
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