Ekspositur: Ein Virtueller Wissensraum

In the framework of "Unternehmen Capricorn" project we developed a virtual knowledge space ["Virtueller Wissensraum"] in collaboration with 10 Austrian museums. The programme, built with EPIC Megagames' UNREAL Game Engine enables 3 users to enter a cross-disciplinary environment based upon objects from the Technical Museum, Jewish Museum, Museum of Natural History, Museum of Modern Art amongst others. The content provided by these museums had to be made accessible and comprehensible to users of different age, educational background and computer literacy. fuchs-eckermann developed a system of connotations amongst the objects, which then was translated into a spatial structure of rooms, corridors and places of different size, shape, remoteness or proximity. The viewer/ listener explores a semantic structure by navigating virtual spaces with the topics being contained in these rooms. The connecting architecture between these rooms resembles staircases, passages, elevators, hidden doors or portals according to the nature of the connotation. Quite contrary to web-based databases and hypertext structures, the links therefore possess a quality of their own, carrying much more information than just "is connected with".