New virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) experience, “Augmented Curiosities: Virtual Play in African Pasts and Futures” at University Library

A new virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) experience, Augmented Curiosities: Virtual Play in African Pasts and Futures, curated by Craig Stevens at the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies, seeks to engage our technological entanglements through the emerging, immersive and experiential AR/VR visualization techniques while critiquing the colonial dynamics of the “cabinets of curiosity” which significantly influenced Western museum practices.  Stevens is a PhD candidate in the department of Anthropology at Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.

A detailed research guide explores the exhibition, where participants can experience and view featured objects through AR/VR.

“We use the tools of the present to formulate our visions of the future and our understandings of the past. Along these explorations of meaning, we apply interfaces of magic upon the seemingly mundane to educate and entertain.” – Craig Stevens

Curatorial Statement by Craig Stevens:
Technologies inspire the creation of new subjectivities – changing our points of perspective and augmenting the ways in which we perceive. Through our ever-expanding applications of innovation, humans recontextualize realities. We use the tools of the present to formulate our visions of the future and our understandings of the past. Along these explorations of meaning, we apply interfaces of magic upon the seemingly mundane to educate and entertain.

Augmented Curiosities engages our technological entanglements through the emerging, immersive and experiential visualization techniques of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). Critiquing the colonial dynamics of the “cabinets of curiosity” which significantly influenced Western museum practices, Augmented Curiosities provides opportunities for intimate and playful interactions with African material culture from the Herskovits Library Collection. Through this digitally tactile experience, we exhibit synergies of the technical and the tangible as a community-oriented framework for future museum curation.

About the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies
Established in 1954, the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies at Northwestern University is the largest separate Africana collection in existence. Its scope is as wide as the continent of Africa itself; its subject matter ranges from art, history, literature, music, science, technology and religion to communications, engineering, management and cooking. The Africana collection is a resource for the entire university, and most of Northwestern’s disciplinary programs are reflected in the collection. In addition to serving the NU community, the Herskovits Library also serves regional, national and international scholars.

The exhibition was made possible in collaboration with:
Herskovits Library of African Studies: Esmeralda Kale, Curator; Dr. Gene Kannenberg, Jr., Crystal L. Martin

Media & Technology Innovation: Zoran Ilic, Vincent LaGrassa, Rodolfo Vieira, Ken Panko, Kat Caribeaux, Jackson Grischeau, Trevor Musolf

Northwestern University Experts: Prof. Chris Abani (Board of Governors Professor), Prof. Antawan Byrd, Natalia Molebatsi

Dr. Bright Gyamfi (NU Presidential Fellow / U.C. San Diego)

And from Northwestern University Libraries

Facilities: James Abbott

Conservation: Susan Russick, Laura Berenger, Julie Calcagno, Roger Shaw Williams

IT Infrastructure: Bob Trauttvetter, Jim Hobbs, Marek Babala

Instructional Technology: Ted Quiballo, Colin Brennan, Hector Ontiveros Morales, Deniz Gorur, Patrick Vermillion