Portfolio

Spomenik

Spomenik is a locative media intervention at a memorial site and mass grave in rural Slovenia, accessed by visitors via their personal mobile phones, and inviting both situated and remote forms of engagement.

Spomenik forms a collaboration with Jim Kosem, who conceived of the original idea to design a mobile experience that would support memorialisation at this site.  In its prototype form, the design serves to augment visitors’ experiences of the physical site by providing them with a cloud-based audio guide and access to testimony accounts about those who are memorialised.  A visitor uses their mobile phone to access and interact with these testimony accounts, being guided through the physical site via an audio narrative delivered on a phone call.  At the end of the call, the visitor may continue remote engagement with the guide through a web interface.

Two Slovenian institutions partnered in the research: the National University Library of Slovenia (NUK) and the Study Centre for National Reconciliation (SCNR).  Spomenik forms part of a broader programme of research at Horizon Digital Economy Research, engaging Computer Science, Economics, Education and Design to explore digital support to memorialisation practices within a global frame, to offer new forms of cultural engagement.