Virtual Reality for Preservation: Production of Virtual Reality Heritage Spaces in the Classrooom

Abstract

The Bethel AME Church was the oldest African American church in Indianapolis. In November 2016, the congregation moved out of downtown, and the building that had housed the congregation since 1869 was sold. It is now being redeveloped into a hotel. Through the Virtual Bethel project, faculty and students in the Media Arts and Science (MAS) program at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) created a 3D virtual space of the physical sanctuary to preserve the cultural heritage of Bethel. During its creation, Virtual Bethel served as a curricular and co-curricular experience for the undergraduate students in the 3D graphics and animation specialization within class N441 3D Team Production, which was co-taught by Albert William and Zebulun Wood. Virtual Bethel, finished in 2018, was the first historical and cultural preservation project that used VR within our class, program, school, and Indiana University (IU) campus. Users can interact with various types of primary sources (e.g., photographs, video, audio, text) to learn about the underrepresented history of African Americans associated with the church. Virtual Bethel was created in a series of classes within the MAS Program in the School of Informatics and Computing (SoIC), IUPUI. Methods of teaching a team of students to preserve historic spaces using VR are discussed, as are our philosophies toward productions when working with varying stakeholders’ priorities related to data preservation, asset preservation, and cultural preservation.