Seminar für Filmwissenschaft

by Dr. David Pfluger, Dr. Ya-Wen Chen, BSc Oliver Hasler
Excerpt of the conference proceedings of EVA Berlin, 2018 7.-9.11.2018, Kulturforum Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
This project combines a street view of the turn of the 20th century Boulevard des Italiens in Paris with textual research. The Théâtre Robert-Houdin at 8, Boulevard des Italiens which was run by stage magician and film pioneer Georges Méliès at the time, is the focal point of our research. The site no longer exists today due to the extension of Boulevard Haussmann in 1924, which created a new intersection at the cost of demolition of the house numbers 2-18. The aim is to recreate the original look and extend our understanding of the Boulevard des Italiens as a cultural site and how it inspired Méliès in his creativity. 3D simulation technologies make it possible to visualize the boulevard, to reconstruct the localities of cultural venues and most importantly, to rediscover the connection between the Méliès' inspiration and the sociocultural environment of the site. The recreation of cultural heritage in a VR space is a novel approach. Since its availability it has been applied to virtually reconstruct architectural sites of past civilisations. We use it for a more recently lost structure and combine it with archival documentation to turn it into a topographical network. This allows researchers to navigate, to ponder and to understand a long lost world in an intuitive way.