The DH project that stands out to me the most is “John Ashbery’s Nest“. On the website, visitors can embark on a virtual tour inside John Ashbery’s Victorian home. The project invites them to “walk” through the spaces that the poet inhabited to learn about the objects that have provided the inspiration for many of his works. The center hall of John Ashbery’s house serves as the main focal point for the project. It is brought to life with 3D images that hone in on the wide variety of objects that are on display in the room.
The sources used to piece this project together primarily came from John Ashbery himself. There are video clips and recordings of Ashbery discussing the objects in his home and reading his poems, archival details about the objects, pieces by Ashbery that reveal his fascination with houses and collecting, and critical writings on the topic.
The sources are then digitized through 360° photography, panoramas, and still photography. This allows users to fully immerse themselves in the environment as they move through the room and view objects while listening to audio and reading additional descriptions. For example, the Royal Teplitz Candelabras is a 360° image which allows users to rotate and view the object while listening to the significance of it to Ashbery’s life.
The final product of the project is an interactive website made accessible to everyone on the internet. Instructions throughout the tour allow users to easily navigate around the room. Users are also free to browse and learn about additional information regarding Ashbery and the Hudson house in a neat menu sidebar. At the bottom of the sidebar, users have the option to search up specific details they are interested in as opposed to looking through each individual subcategory. The smooth and clean design of the website makes for a great user experience.
Overall, the site does a great job giving the general public a look inside Ashbery’s home and organizes the information in an engaging manner. It is amazing how real the virtual tour feels from entering the front door to hearing Ashbery describe the reason why his house is dimly lit. I believe the VR aspect of the site plays a large role in making the learning experience fun. It feels almost as if users are playing a game. It is a great use of virtual reality tour and multimedia annotation.
I like how you describe it as ‘walking’ through the home. I think that’s the idea for digital projects such as these; let visitor actually experience the home from anywhere in the world!
Your analysis of this project was quite interesting. Your post highlighted the realistic aspects of the project and makes one want to view John Ashbery’s digital home too. The 360 degree aspect and 3D images you emphasized make the project seem even more fascinating.
I really liked the format of this post, it was very clear to read how the project was reversed engineered at every stage. I also found the way in which you cropped and inserted the screen shots into the piece were helpful as they were focused on the image relevant to your text and captioned accordingly. Really informative and interesting post!
Great blog post! I agree wholeheartedly on what you said about the virtual tour being similar to a game. The way the website was structured and developed makes learning about a historical artifact even more interesting than visiting the house itself. The screenshot snippet of an example artifact also helped to support some of the comments you made on the processing stage of the project.