“Wald”: Virtual Reality Museum Experience through the History of the Pfälzerwald

For the special exhibition "In the Forest. Cultural History of the Palatinate Forest" in the Kaiserslautern City Museum, Kaiserslautern University of Applied Sciences cooperated with the museum and had students develop a VR museum experience that conveyed the changing history of the Pfälzerwald as an emotional journey through time.

The forest was and is a cultural space, charged with history and stories, moods and meanings. An emotional topic rich in stories, but at the same time difficult to grasp and convey via texts or objects. Students at Kaiserslautern University of Applied Sciences have therefore chosen a new path - and implemented the content as a virtual reality time travel.

Virtual time travel: #WALD

"As soon as visitors put on the VR glasses, they find themselves in the fantastic world of the Palatinate Forest. One wanders through different concise phases of history [... sees and feels,] how people at which time evaluated the forest and what that meant for the handling of the special biotope.

Guests learn exciting details and all sorts of amazing things about times of deep reverence, phases of ruthless exploitation and the years of reforestation. They will learn about the forest as a sublime abode of the gods, an eerie place of fairy tales, legends and trials, a hostile place of danger, an exploited resource and a symbol of a battered nature.

Worship, destruction and restoration are explained. The main focus is on the representation of the different atmospheres and moods that prevail in the forest. Depending on the time of year or day, but also on the attitude with which one enters the forest, it can appear serene, friendly, threatening, mysterious, eerie or restful."

A student project supervised by Professor Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Matthias Pfaff (Department of Building and Design) and Professor Dipl.-Des. (FH) Christian Schmachtenberg (Virtual Design course).