22 NEWS BRIEFING
The atrium will
display large iconic
exhibits
HERITAGE
TECHNOLOGY PUTS YOU AT THE
CENTRE OF THE FIRST WORLD
WAR AT IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM
IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM
BY AASHA BODHANI
THE IMPERIAL War Museum’s
main London site will re-open in
July following a £35m
transformation that has seen the
First World War Galleries
completely revamped in time for
the centenary commemorations
of the conflict, which began in
August 1914. The atrium has also
been reconfigured to display
large exhibits.
The previous First World War
Galleries were designed in the
1980s using the traditional ‘show
and tell’ concept of showcasing
an object alongside a printed
caption. Now, 30 years on, IWM
London is taking advantage of
developments in technology to
modernise its space and engage
visitors using digital screens,
interactive world maps and
sensor-enabled experiences.
“We want our visitors to
travel through the actual time of
the First World War, and this can
only be done by bringing objects
to life; digital enables us to do
these things,” explained IWM
digital producer Jo Saull. “By
digitising archive material, our
visitors can engage closer to
these objects as they wouldn’t
have been able to before.”
The gallery is divided into
two areas, Home Front and
Fighting Front, which will cover
Engineering & Technology July 2014 www.EandTmagazine.com
14 topics: Hope and Glory, Why
War?, Shock, Your Country
Needs You, Deadlock, World
War, Feeding the Front, Total
War, At All Costs, Life at the
Front, Machines Against Men,
Breaking Down, Seizing Victory
and War Without End.
A collection of approximately
1,300 objects will be on display,
including weapons, uniforms,
diaries, letters and souvenirs.
Alongside them, 66 digital pieces
will give further insights into
the history of the items.
Visitors are welcomed into
the gallery showing the ‘People
of Britain’ film, created by
filmmakers Mitchell & Kenyon
in the early 1900s. The film is
projected onto a six-metre
screen wrapping around the
inside of a showcase of ship
models using three projectors.
The Home Front area reminds
visitors how the First World War
was won from behind the scenes.
This is portrayed in the Factory
Window: a video wall
comprising six 46in screens. The
wall uses a six-channel Dataton
Watchout PC to combine
photographs and videos
showing the industrial and
human elements of factory life.
Along with the Factory
Window, the museum has
installed the Supply Line; a
four-metre interactive table
embedded with sensory objects,
which aims to bring to life the
story of the Home Front’s
critical role.
Visitors will become part of
the production chain as they
interact with each object,
creating shells to feed the guns,
making clothing and sourcing
meat, for example.
The interactive table relies on
four Epson projectors used for
digital signage, four PCs
running Microsoft Windows 7,
two Point Grey infrared cameras
and 25 TaCap3 capacitive
sensors that trigger effects when
activated.
The Fighting Front includes
an exhibition that brings to life
the war across the globe using
touchscreen technology and
animations to show different
fighting fronts and more about
the war at sea.
Objects from
the trenches
Similar is the Timeslice zone,
an animated newspaper-like
format showcasing a range of
illustrated historical worldwide
events before the outbreak of
the war; a Microsoft Kinect
camera detects the visitor’s
movements, which trigger the
animation.
Another space is dedicated to
ten renowned artefacts from the
First World War era: the French
75 field gun, Hymn of Hate
gramophone record, camouflage
tree, 9.2in Howitzer, Uncle Sam
poster, identity tags, Haig map,
Sassoon letter, artificial arm
and the Orpen Versailles
painting. Touchscreens tell each
object’s background and
meaning in greater detail than a
printed caption could achieve.
The gallery’s Life at the Front
space is a replica of the trench
experience. Designed to give
visitors a sense of what the
troops encountered living
outdoors in a war environment,
the area includes a Sopwith
Camel plane and a Mark V tank.
It uses a 19-channel soundscape,
along with projections and
silhouettes from different
settings such as thunderstorms,
gas attacks and firing of
machine guns, to add realism to
the experience.
The ambience of the museum
purposely draws out visitors’
emotions, not only through a
colour scheme that uses
different shades to represent the
14 different sections, but also
through two atmospheric
spaces, designed for reflection.
These emotive zones – Should
war have rules? and Kill or be
killed – encourage visitors to
reflect on the Rules of War and
gas warfare, while listening to
quotes and experiences taken
from war diaries, letters and
moving pictures.
The IWM’s transformation
has had its challenges. Saull
explained that maintaining the
authenticity of the archives has
been troublesome, as digitising
the material takes time,
especially when the film is old
and it has to be modified before
it can be scanned.
Nonetheless, staff who have
spent the last 18 months
applying modern technology to
keep alive the remembrance of
events 100 years ago will soon be
able to judge the success of their
efforts.
IWM London re-opens on
19 July. For more details, visit
the website: www.iwm.org.uk/
visits/iwm-london