Promoting and supporting the digital transformation of German cultural institutions: this is the aim of the “Digital Fund*”, one of the three components of the “Kultur Digital” program implemented by the German Federal Cultural Foundation and supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media, within which SPUR.lab was initiated.
Supported by the Brandenburg Establishment for Culture and History**, SPUR.lab brings together the Brandenburg Sites of Remembrance Foundation (Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen camps), the House of Brandenburg and Prussian History and the KONRAD WOLF Film Academy Babelsberg.
With a budget of 1.1 million euros (including 880,000 euros from the Digital Fund), SPUR.lab is a pioneering project in Germany for the valorization of camp heritage.
This is not only the very first exploration of XR to transmit the memory of the camps and National Socialism, but also an innovative project in its approach, offering structures a platform, support and resources to test, experiment and develop prototypes together in an agile method.
Annabelle Türkis spoke to Bettina Loppe about her career and the projects she has managed at SPUR.lab. Here is the translation.
1. AT – To begin with, could you tell us a little about your background and your role at SPUR.lab?
I specialize in cultural project management, curating and graphic design, as well as being an artist. It was through the management of numerous projects on a European and international scale, in the school and university sectors, that my career path led me to the interdisciplinary research project SPUR.lab, which I have been piloting since the beginning of 2020, and which will be coming to an end very soon.
My main mission is to coach and support teams in the development of digital innovation projects in agile mode. In this capacity, I piloted a collaborative work process involving professionals from museums, places of memory, artists in residence, scientists, as well as digital experts, while managing everything that goes with it, i.e. a budget, dialogue with stakeholders, communication, and so on.
AT – What were the aims and missions of the SPUR.lab project?
Through digital experiences and mediation incorporating an artistic dimension, the aim of SPUR.lab was to contribute to the work of remembrance on National Socialism and the concentration camps, and to offer younger generations, immersed in the digital ecosystem, a renewed approach to this dark period in history.
SPUR.lab was born of a sense of urgency, and in a very specific context. On the one hand, while the accounts of those who witnessed the events are absolutely shocking, these men and women will unfortunately not be with us for much longer. On the other hand, there is often little left of the buildings of the former concentration camps, and we can no longer imagine what living conditions were like in the camps.
This is precisely where we wanted to take action: to show younger generations the history of these places and the suffering they embody, in the most respectful tone possible. In this way, we don’t expose visitors to an immersive experience unless they are accompanied by appropriate mediation.
AT. – Before designing the project, what was your diagnosis of the younger generation’s relationship with the history of National Socialism, and did you include “young people” in the development of the projects?
We drew on a study examining Generation Z’s relationship to National Socialism, which confirmed our hypotheses. Published at the beginning of 2022 by the Arolsen Archives, International Center on Nazi Persecution, this study reveals that Generation Z is far more interested in the Nazi era than their parents’ generation, while at the same time needing to understand how it came to this and why anti-Semitism persists. At the same time, school curricula and visits to camps or traditionally-mediated exhibitions are not always able to address these issues in a meaningful way.
We therefore used a design thinking method: we tested our prototypes with focus groups (more than half of which were aged between 16 and 19, and almost 20% between 30 and 44), and found that we were on the right track. More precisely, our method was to develop our first ideas, test these intermediate versions with young people, assess these first tests with them, then continue production, repeat a series of tests on a smaller scale, before drawing conclusions.
AT. – How did you manage the ethical aspects of your projects? How far do you think the virtual experience of Nazi crimes can go?
From the outset, there was a red line we couldn’t cross: no reconstruction, no reenactment.
But this red line gave rise to debate between the project’s partners, for while this bias was obvious to those working in places of remembrance, it was not to those at the film school. But it was by working with artists that we were able to overcome this problem and develop a form of re-enactment that takes enormous precautions with regard to the representation of the perpetrators of the atrocities and their victims: we thus show the reality of the camps in a very abstract way, focusing more on the mass slaughter than on the victims as individuals.
But we mustn’t forget that this approach to the memorial heritage of this era is unique to Germany, given the role it has played in history.
AT. – What makes SPUR.lab a particularly innovative project?
SPUR.lab is innovative in many ways. It’s important to bear in mind the context in which the project began (late 2019 – early 2020): at that time, digital mediation at camp memorial sites was virtually non-existent in Germany – Dachau excepted – and was mainly carried out with traditional audio guides.
In this context, SPUR.lab is innovative first and foremost in its approach, and in the question we dared to ask: is it right to associate augmented reality, virtual reality and national socialism? This question has never really been asked in Germany before. .
Secondly, the project is innovative in its approach. We didn’t simply entrust the realization of an idea to a studio, but took the time to discuss, test and experiment. And this was because the German Federal Cultural Foundation didn’t expect the beneficiaries to produce finished, well-crafted productions, but rather to take an open-ended approach. That’s why we were able to be innovative: because we had the opportunity to dare to make mistakes, and were in the right conditions to do so.
AT. – Do you think SPUR.lab meets a contemporary need?
Clearly, contemporary society – and therefore the audiences that cultural institutions cater to – is in a state of flux. Expectations in terms of access to knowledge and information are changing with the advent of the younger generations. Knowledge is ubiquitous and instantly accessible, and the formats in which it is transmitted are changing, offering opportunities for participation in the most diverse registers.
This is the kind of society that demands access to knowledge. That’s why cultural institutions in the future need to think more holistically. Today, the vast majority of cultural and museum institutions are organized in the traditional way: a hierarchical structure, well-established perimeters reflected in job descriptions, and so on. But I’m convinced that they need to be more flexible and agile to meet the needs of our times. Like intelligent, hybrid bodies, analog and digital, they must, to fulfill their educational missions, enable a critical approach to society and its evolution, be able to pick up on weak signals and put themselves to the test – in short, to reach the audiences of the 21st century, they must be able to experiment.
Conclusion
Creativity, risk-taking, the right to make mistakes, collaborative processes and prototyping: the ingredients of innovation are brought together in a context where they were not expected, that of memorial heritage, and a fortiori that of the camps and National Socialism in Germany. A daring project if ever there was one.
We can only dream of future steps: an extension on a European scale – notably for the HORIZON project, as mentioned by Bettina Loppe – and, in this context, a consideration of the carbon footprint of the device as a whole, although it’s worth welcoming the fact that the prototypes have been designed in digital commons.
Find out more about the SPUR.lab project
Initiated as part of the federal “Digital Fund” program, SPUR.lab is a multi-year experimental project that has produced 4 prototypes of digital mediation and experience with the XR, in open content under a Creative Commons license.
BLACK BOX is a virtual reality experience that allows visitors to follow in the footsteps of Gerhart Seger, an elected Social Democrat of the Weimar Republic and former inmate of the Oranienburg camp. Extracts from a text by Seger are interwoven with a fragmentary 3D reconstruction of the camp. The navigation leads to a torture room, which remains inaccessible: a “black box”. The prototype’s underlying theme is the question of decency and the limits of an immersive experience.
VIDNESS is an augmented reality project about the former Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp, about which there is a wealth of archival material. Faced with this abundant “material”, VIDNESS incorporates videos – many of them 360° – and artistic performances, highlighting the complementarity between digital media and “traditional” mediation.
Visitors often feel a sense of emptiness when confronted with the remains of former camps, and need to be able to visualize them better. The ZEITSCHICHTEN augmented reality application for the former Sachsenhausen camp memorial allows them to be visualized in sketch form, while highlighting the growing number of inmates.
The HORIZON application highlights the traces of the National Socialist past that run through Brandenburg, revealing the routes taken by the victims and the places where their executioners raged. Incarceration, deportation, forced labor… HORIZON reveals these tragic routes, which started and ended in Brandenburg, and often crossed the whole of Europe.
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*The ” Digital Fund ” is one of the three components of the “Kultur Digital” program. Kultur Digital “program implemented by the German Federal Cultural Foundation (supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media), alongside the ” Kultur-Hackathon Coding da Vinci” and the ” Akademie für Theater und Digitalität”. Over four years, from 2020 to the end of 2023, with a budget of 15.8 million euros, the “Digital Fund” has enabled 15 digital innovation projects to see the light of day, bringing together a total of more than 36 cultural institutions, including museums, theaters, opera houses and SPUR.lab partners.
**The SPUR.lab project (01.01.2020 – 31.12.2023) is supported by the Brandenburgische Gesellschaft für Kultur und Geschichte, and brings together the Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück, the Gedenkstätte und Museum Sachsenhausen (these two memorial sites are united in the Stiftung Brandenburgische Gedenkstätten), the Haus der Brandenburgisch-Preußischen Geschichte and the Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF.
SPUR.lab Partner @BKG.
