The visitor will wear special glasses, gloves, climb the treadmill and feel that he is in the port of Thessaloniki, on the ship of Nikolaos Votsis, in October 1912. From 2023 all this, as at that time it is estimated that the construction and placement of a special VR (virtual reality) installation will be completed in the area of the permanent exhibition of the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle, through which the visitor will "co-star" and experience the historic event of the torpedoing of Fetich Bulent.
The installation is part of the program "Personalized Interaction with Historical Cultural Elements in Virtual and Augmented Reality" and is expected to give "new life to the Museum", according to Stavroula Mavrogeni, director of the Macedonian History and Documentation Research Center IMMA, professor at the Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies of the University of Macedonia. The goal is to achieve this "new breath" through the remodeling of the space, as well as through the educational programs, which will be designed for different age groups.
The Foundation of the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle, within the framework of the program in collaboration with N-CODE EPE and the Information Visualization and Virtual Reality Group of the Wired Telecommunications Laboratory of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Technology of the University of Patras, undertook to carry out research on the revival of of the torpedoing of the warship Feich Bulent, which was anchored in the port of Thessaloniki in October 1912. "We want the visitor to come to the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle and experience being on Torpilovolos 11, as a member of the crew", notes Mrs. Mavrogeni , academically responsible for the program.
The original CuRVE application will be used to enhance an IMMA demonstration laboratory with findings from the wreck of the Ottoman warship "Fetih Bulent" with the aim of documenting and highlighting the historical event of the torpedoing of the Ottoman battleship by Torpedo Volos 11. The project aims to to combine the latest achievements of Virtual Reality and Interactive Narrative, to strengthen the functioning of receptive laboratories of cultural organizations by influencing the way the visitor experiences the cultural space, turning him into an active user of Culture.
"The aim of CuRVE is to motivate the visitor to get to know the cultural goods and in a pleasant and entertaining way to discover, evaluate and respect the historical elements of culture to such an extent that he understands why it is important to preserve them and the values with which are connected and which significantly influence the historical, cultural, political and social development", underlines Mrs. Mavrogeni.
The multifaceted emergence of the incident of the torpedoing of Fetich Bulent is illuminated through extensive archival and bibliographic research. The research includes primary printed sources, such as - for example - documents from state archives of Greece and Turkey, memoirs of the participants in the events, articles and publications of the Greek and international press, letter slips, photographic evidence and historical reproductions of images on tapes. At the same time, objects recovered from the actual shipwreck are being examined and are currently exhibited at the Naval Museum of Greece, the War Museum of Thessaloniki and the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle. Program ID:Writing Team - Academic Responsible:Stavroula Mavrogenis. Representative of IMMA in the Monitoring Committee of the Project:Fani Tsachaia. Researchers:Konstantinos S. Papanikolaou, Christos Kyriakopoulos, Spyridon Gasteratos, Evangelos Kansizoglou.
Nikolaos Votsis.
SOURCE:APE-ME