AR Communities@Kinderstadt revisited - at an international conference!
The gold extra research project AR Communities is represented at this year's ZIP Scene Conference with a talk about the Mars Mission in Kinderstadt Salzburg. On November 17, Sophia Reiterer will give a talk about the interactive crafting of dream cities, creating collective utopias, and the role of digital media, thresholds, and game elements in these processes.
The talk focuses on the participatory use of digital technologies in public spaces with the goal of fostering critical knowledge and cultural participation through games. Using the case study of the "Mars Mission" in Kinderstadt Mini-Salzburg, the talk specifically illustrates how children and young people aged 8 to 14 develop their own dream cities on Mars in AR/XR using collaborative and creative digital tools.
The motivation for exploring playful and digital tools to promote cultural participation stems from the awareness of an ever-growing global crisis. The question "How do we want to live together?" is more relevant than ever. In light of the increasing overload of urban spaces and the escalating climate crisis, issues such as space shortages, global warming, and rising temperatures in cities demand urgent attention. Traditional concepts and methods to address these crises often fall short. Therefore, there is a pressing need for innovative approaches that foster deep listening and community engagement. The Mars Mission in Mini-Salzburg is the prototype of such an innovative approach, which will be presented and discussed in the talk.
The ZIP-SCENE conference is organized by Zip-Scene, Art*VR Festival and ARDIN – Association for Research in Digital Interactive Narratives and will take place from November 17 to 19 on-site at the "DOX: Centre For Contemporary Art" in Prague.
The theme of this year's conference is "Unveiling the Crisis of Stories: Can Interactive Digital Storytelling Lead to Deep Listening?"
