Connect>Create: From 20th century docks to 21st century games environments
Sarah Humphreys, Curriculum Leader and Programme Leader New Media, Hull School of Art and Design
shumphreys@artdesignhull.ac.uk
Keywords: Historical Research, Heritage, Environment, Architecture, Game Design
Context
Connect>Create is a Museums and Education collaboration which uses the Hull Museums and Ferens Art Gallery collections as inspiration for student work. Developed initially in 2007 by the Museums services in partnership with Hull School of Art and Design, it now extends to involve post 16 providers in the region.
Academic staff develop briefs in response to identified collections, which then form part of the curriculum. Unique access to Museum archives feed the development process, and project outcomes are entered into an exhibition and used as case studies in learning resources for future educational visits.
In previous years the Madame Clapham collection has inspired fashion, film and graphic design students. Post war and contemporary art has been explored through photography. The current focus is the Hull Maritime Museum collections and Maritime paintings at the Ferens Art Gallery. Themes explore voyages and life onboard ship, Hull maritime history and its shaping of the local area, and the weird and wonderful objects collected by travelling sailors.
Case studies
The Games Design curriculum includes a module which develops construction skills using games technology and demands a conceptual understanding of environment.
A project requiring a strong historical context would move the students away from “competitor analysis” towards deep research, and feed into subsequent working practice for other games projects.
The brief was to recreate Hull's city docks at the turn of the 20th century, a fly through tour built using the Unreal engine to give insight into how the city dock area looked and what life was like for the people working and living nearby. The challenge was to undertake detailed historical research to bring accuracy to the buildings and environment.
The Interactive Media curriculum includes a module which explores physical interaction models and environment design. The freak show theme based around the weird and wonderful objects collection offered great scope to produce an imaginative and immersive interactive environment and a brief was set to that effect.
The response was an interesting “set”, controlled using motion sensors and a ships wheel to navigate, with a theatrical ringmaster to lead proceedings and atmospheric sound and visuals. However despite an invitation to experiment and emphasise the gruesome there was a tendency towards the safe and factual. The challenge was to break away from a stereotyped perception of how and what content should be presented in a museum environment.
The final challenge was the combined effort of the public exhibition in the widest sense. School wide interdisciplinary collaboration brought together the disparate ingredients. The space was planned and constructed around the products in development, the event promoted and catalogued, and the physical is made virtual. A unique opportunity to learn and work together.
