BRINGING MUSEUMS TO LIFE

It’s teachers’ age-old question: how to make youth excited about learning? Sohail Dahdal, associate professor of mass communications at American University of Sharjah, is sure of the answer: stories. The real question is how to tell them.

For decades, he has worked to engage young people in subjects they might not otherwise be interested in, particularly culture and history, but he found that “new technologies are often used as gimmicks,” whereas “we want to put the emphasis on story.” However, it wasn’t until recently that the technology has become good enough to do that. “Now we are ready.”

Dahdal founded 5th Wall Immersive Media Lab to use technology to put the audience in the story, for the educational realm. In theatre or film, a story is told within the three “walls” of the set. An actor “breaks the fourth wall” by speaking to the audience. Breaking the fifth wall means putting the audience into the story.

The start-up is based in Sharjah Research, Technology and Innovation Park, near AUS. It gets support from Sharjah Entrepreneurship Centre (Sheraa), which also sponsors the Access Sharjah Challenge aimed at start-ups in the creative industries. In a bit of serendipity, the challenge asked for ideas to reimagine museums. Museums already use technology, Dahdal notes; it’s immersive storytelling that’s revolutionary.

“We thought, our technology would be perfect for museums,” he says. “The Challenge fit with our ethos. It was an opportunity for us to test the technology and to do it for a museum that’s right next to us.” 5th Wall won a $50,000 prize in the Challenge. 

“We create immersive media with strong storytelling where the technology is in the service of the story,” he says.

To get technology so natural and seamless that all attention is on the story, 5th Wall developed proprietary technology called Gaze, which uses artificial intelligence so the user doesn’t have to click or scroll or type or scan. It can detect when the user is looking at something and offers a story, played on AR glasses or on a visitor’s tablet or smartphone via an app. “I want it to be future proof,” Dahdal says, so 5th Wall doesn’t rely on any single device.

A museum visitor standing in front of a display will be offered a story about the artefact—the objects behind the glass will come to life on their own. The story will inhabit the room or space of the exhibition—if the room has a table, the story has a table. If the visitor turns away, the story will continue for a minute in case the distraction was temporary, or stop if it’s clear the visitor has moved on to something else. The visitor can simply explore, accompanied by a personal digital docent and re-enactors presenting facts entertainingly.

The concept is labour-intensive. Thirteen animators, programmers, storytellers, and experts have already spent a year and a half working on the project. A combination of experts and Dahdal’s colleagues team up in short incubators with senior students and new graduates to develop agile prototypes. “We have some of the top talents in the UAE,” says Dahdal, who is also 5th Wall’s creative director. “We want to connect the new generation that is already tech savvy with expert industry people who understand storytelling. Putting the two together can create something that speaks to young people and is robust and high quality and also affordable because we’re using young talent.”

In the next phase, the Sharjah Museums Authority will decide which museum will deploy Gaze first and will collaborate with 5th Wall on the stories. “The content must be authentic,” Dahdal says. “Then we use our imaginations in creating 3D objects and bringing the stories to life—adding voices and music. It’s cinematic as well.”

5th Wall’s museum product will be deliberately minimalist. “The worst thing that could happen is if you’re bombarded with things, especially with heritage sites. Sometimes you want to be silent in the place. But at some stage, you might want to snap out and know a little more.”