Going on a trail through history
Slough: Explore town with ‘ground-breaking’ technology
The male voice of Siri will be narrating the story of Slough’s space programme as an immersive storytelling experience.
Jon Briggs, also the host of podcast You’re On The Air!, narrates an augmented reality trail through the town that explores Slough’s Space Programme, ‘a DIY approach to reaching the stars.’
The stories featured on the trail are among hundreds told through ‘groundbreaking’ multimedia technologies as part of the UK’s largest immersive storytelling experience, StoryTrails.
StoryTrails is free to attend and invites residents to experience Slough in a ‘completely new way’ through augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and an immersive map of the town.
On September 3 and 4, activity is centred around the Library @ The Curve and on the streets of Slough itself.
The augmented reality trail, accessed through mobile devices, allows visitors to meet a variety of figures from Slough’s past who have helped drive space exploration.
This ranges from historic stargazers Caroline and William Herschel to trading estate manufacturers and technicians who provided
parts for rockets and mission control services in the 1960s and 1970s.
The trail was created using film from BBC, British Film Institute and archives to present a window into the past.
Visitors can borrow devices from the library and follow guided augmented reality trails across the twoday event.
Inside the library, the immersive map of Slough reveals 10 stories at familiar landmarks, such as Ashbourne House and The Herschel Arms.
The map was created by Slough-based Kenya Scarlett who used 3D scanning of people and buildings.
The 15-minute film plays on a loop throughout the day. If visitors do not have a smart phone, they can borrow one on the day for free.
Kenya alongside VR workshop facilitator Jay Younes, who created the trail and is also Slough-based, are two of 50 emerging creatives selected to take part.
“It’s taken months of work to get to this point and we can’t believe we finally get to share it with everyone,” Jay said.
“It’s truly been a project by Slough, for Slough, created in Slough.
“We’ve unearthed incredible stories of powerful local characters that deserve to be told [and] we’re using new technologies like AR to bring them to life in a way that makes them accessible to all.”
Time travel continues inside the library across the two live event days, when visitors enter digitally created worlds using a virtual reality (VR) headset.
They can find themselves in the shoes of a rebellious teenager as she discovers her mother’s punk past; take part in one of the many South Asian daytime raves that took place across the UK in the 1980s and 1990s; and hear what earlier generations thought life would be like today.
Historian and television presenter David Olusoga, familiar to viewers of the BBC’s A House Through Time, narrates a further AR experience that invites visitors to turn a dial on a virtual giant radio and travel back in time.
From Beatlemania and the flares of the swinging sixties, to dancing to the end of the millennium in crop-tops and trainers, audiences will experience a potted history of the UK through the decades.