PlayTheCityRE: A visual storytelling system that transforms recorded film memories into visual history

Abstract

Within social media we find many stories that tell us the world that is around us. Unfortunately, we tend to forget what happened in the past and the young generations are losing a cultural heritage passed down for generations. In the attempt of preserving memories and of intercepting the attention of the new generations, in this paper we propose PlayTheCityRE, a location-based storytelling system that merges private film memories shot from 1940 to 1989 (e.g., 8mm, super8mm) with modern communication technologies to tell the story of our past while walking in city streets. The system is provided with a mobile application that allows people to explore an unusual city through the eyes of amateur film sequences (now historic) and to select different routes that will bring them in the same city places where they were filmed. By merging film memories with modern technologies, our system engages different audiences in specific ways and on multiple levels, allowing them to walk through history. Therefore, our storytelling system may help fostering historical consciousness within our society.