“To create an emotional context for public engagement” – prof. Sarah Kenderdine (EPFL Pavilions, eM+, DIAGRAM project)

The Geneva International Film Festival this year was, for me, an enlightening experience. During the event, I had the chance to interview Prof. Sarah Kenderdine, who joined the festival with a conference titled Future Cinema Systems as part of the Tales of Swiss Innovation event (Cover 📸 Hervé Pfister). Prof. Sarah Kenderdine is the Director and Curator of the EPFL Pavilions and the head of Laboratory for Experimental Museology (eM+) at EPFL.

I must admit, with some embarrassment, that I was not familiar with the research conducted at this lab. However, I am far less embarrassed to say that after discovering it, I talked about it so much with my friends that I managed to convince them to join me on a tour of the lab next spring.

To make a long story short: before attending the festival in Geneva, I had read about the Diagram project – the digitising and augmenting of THE PANORAMA OF THE BATTLE OF MURTEN, which was presented for the first time (albeit in a simplified version) at the Virtual Territories during the GIFF (read our interview with curator Anaïs Emery). Then, in preparation for the interview, I delved deeper into the project, the lab, and Prof. Kenderdine’s impressive body of work. By the time I finally met this incredible and inspiring woman, it took all my strength not to fangirl openly… though I confess, I’m afraid I still kind of did.

There’s not much you can do about it, after all. Every now and then in life, you’re lucky enough to meet people who truly leave you speechless. You could listen to them for hours because their visionary ideas and their passion go hand in hand, enabling them to work on incredible projects, surround themselves with extraordinarily talented people, and bring new perspectives, knowledge, and experiences not just to the great thinkers out there, but also to ordinary people. The people who are deeply connected to the future, yet often kept out of it by ways of presenting it that fail to speak their language.

I won’t add much more, but I’ll let Prof. Kenderdine’s words speak for themselves about the role of media archaeology and how the museum experience and its curation must (and can) evolve to truly connect knowledge with the world out there. And what a beautiful, life-changing connection it could be.

Emerging narratives and the future of museums: the role of participation and audience engagement

Sarah Kenderdine – In museums we’re coming to understand the need to be more inclusive and participatory. We must invite the public into what we call an “emergent narrative”, which is an interactive narrative. The tools and technologies to support this approach are already available, so let’s use them, or invent what we need! 

S. K. – Mainly, today, there is a growing recognition of audience engagement, though, which marks a significant shift in the philosophy of museums: from a traditionally didactic approach to one that empowers the public to form their own interpretations, aided by scholarly knowledges, or not. This shift acknowledges that there may be multiple outcomes from the same experience rather than a single narrative.

S. K. – Additionally, we face the challenge of preserving heritage at-risk, whether natural, built, or intangible. These elements of cultural heritage are often ephemeral, making digitization – and multimodal digitization especially – essential.

S. K. – We also now have the technology that can create highly immersive, impactful experiences, but it needs to be also a future-proof technology. High-resolution data captures are particularly critical here to preserve heritage: while phone-based documentation is convenient, cultural institutions must invest in high-end tools to ensure longevity and quality of the cultural archives they are creating. 

S. K. – All this has led us into a new paradigm of cultural big data and to the question of how to deal with them. Take, for example, the Swiss TV and radio archive we’re currently working with: 120,000 hours of video. How can the public begin to access and explore such an immense archive? So much of our work focuses on finding participatory and emerging narrative-driven paradigms to unlock the potential of large-scale data like this. Whether it’s tangible or intangible cultural heritage, we aim to reimagine it digitally for the public using algorithmic tools. Techniques such as photogrammetry, volumetric and spherical video, and stereographics are central to re-articulate this world for the public. They offer audiences unprecedented access to experiences and places they might otherwise never see. 

The significance of media archeology

S. K. – This aligns with a longstanding tradition in museums and technology, which is bringing the world to people, enabling what is called armchair travel. 

S. K. – In the old days, for example in the 19th century, people would use stereographic slides, along with a slide viewer, to explore the world from their own homes. They’d purchase a box of slides, sit back, and travel to distant places from the comfort of their living rooms. The same was on offer in exhibition spaces.

S. K. – Much of what we discuss today has roots in these early innovations in film and media technology. So, understanding media archaeology is essential to grasping some of the trajectories that we’re in today. It’s a fascinating field because, often, what we consider a new way of thinking or using technology has origins in ideas documented as far back as the mid-19th century. We need to acknowledge and learn from these unprecedented formats of the past.

S. K. – In my teaching, I emphasize media archaeology from the start. While I don’t delve too deeply into distant history, I introduce students to a curated overview of the field. We then explore the work of one or two pioneering media artists to see how artists have historically engaged with technology in experimental ways. Often, decades later, the industry adopts these once-radical paradigms, re-inventing or commodifying them. Recognizing these trajectories encourages a mindset that embraces experimentation and recognises artist influence at the precipice of innovation. 

Facing frightening technologies to unlock critical opportunities

S. K. – Studying media archaeology provides a grounding perspective, making today’s technologies feel less intimidating. However, tools like generative AI can still be quite unsettling for many, especially as they make significant inroads in the film industry, where  they can create synthetic visual narratives from material from the past.

S. K. – In regard to AI, I’m currently involved in a project for the World Expo in Osaka, specifically for the Swiss Pavilion, for a project initiated by GESDA, leading science diplomacy for the world. It is a science diplomacy anticipation portal that involves 2,100 scientists contributing to a database projecting scientific advancements over the next 5, 10, and 20 years. The topics are highly technical, like quantum computing or augmented reality, which makes it challenging for the general public to engage with.

S. K. – To bridge this gap, we’ve developed a new system that processes the science database through a large language model, allowing the public to explore it by adjusting various parameters. They can select themes like quantum computing, human augmentation , or more specific subthemes, as well as set parameters like country and emotion, human/non human. Based on their choices, the system generates a personalized image and a narrative: a lyrical, evocative story that projects into the future… their own personalized story. This work involves three million generated images. 

S. K. – Even from this you can see how these tools are definitely compelling, especially for cinematic storytelling. Yet we’re fully aware of the bias, the complexities of prompt engineering, the ethical problems that these technologies raise and how hard you have to work to overcome them. Right now, our work involves a great deal of manual labor in refining prompts and manipulating the semantics of a story to achieve the desired output. While future advancements in AI and model training may alleviate some of these challenges, we acknowledge and sympathize with the valid concerns many have. We respond to the challenges. 

S. K. – I also believe that these technologies offer extraordinary opportunities, and we need to engage with them. One of our other current research projects uses large language models with 100s of 1000s of hours of film archives,opening up public access to these massive archives. 

Creating the right content for public engagement

S. K. – Creating the right context for public engagement is essential. And it’s an emotional context, not a didactic one. While factual information about cultural heritage, scientific data, or other content should always be accessible in a suitable format, blending didactics into an immersive experience can disrupt the intended effect. The instance that text appears on the screen, the cognitive mind kicks in, shifting into a labeling mode rather than a reflective or embodied one. Balancing these elements by delivering certain messages separately can foster a richer, more impactful experience.

S. K. – One of the core issues with multimedia and museums is that museums often attempt to do too much with those powerful tools. Kiosks were overloaded with information, which led to disengagement. The public simply hated them, and they fell out of use. The problem wasn’t the quality of information or images, but rather that it was the wrong paradigm for that context.

S. K. – Museums are fundamentally social spaces, places of civic connection, where everyday visitors watch each other, meet strangers, commune with other people. They offer very social dynamics in a learning environment. And they’re obviously a place of discovery, as well. Designing interfaces that reflect these social and exploratory qualities should be the direction for immersive technology in museums.

S. K. – This aligns with the idea of an experiential curatorship, where multisensory, immersive, experiential and kinesthetic elements allow people to move, interact, and remain actively engaged, unlike in cinema, where the audience is seated and passive (though cinema is social, highly active and tactile in its own way). The active body and the social body are both key parts of the experience.

S. K. – The talk I gave recently at GIFF was titles the Future Cinema Systems. I explored all these themes further, drawing on the concept of expanded cinema from Gene Youngblood in the 1970s. This idea was central to ZKM’s ‘Future Cinema’ exhibition, which brought together all these different cinematic-style technologies into the public space in a museological format, merging media arts with media art history. THE PANORAMA OF THE BATTLE OF MURTEN is one example of this approach.

Discovering THE PANORAMA OF THE BATTLE OF MURTEN

S. K. – This project offers a unique opportunity to explore media archaeology through what might be considered the earliest immersive type of environments. Truly, these panoramas were fully immersive. They created a physical 3D scene in front of viewers, giving a remarkable illusion of spatial depth on a 2D canvas with faux terrain (3D) elements.  

S. K. – The panorama format produced some extraordinary installations when it emerged. At EPFL we’re now working with panorama owners worldwide to register these works as the first true immersive media format with UNESCO Memory of the Word.

S. K. – THE PANORAMA OF THE BATTLE OF MURTEN, beyond what it represents as a physical object, is a majestic work: 100 meters long, 10 meters high, not on public display but stored in a military facility. During its lifetime, it has only been seen for seven and a half years, including six months at the Expo.02.

S. K. – In our lab, we set up the physical panorama, building custom rigs to facilitate both conservation and digitization work, each process taking around three months. The digital image is 1.6 trillion pixels, arguably double the size of the largest image ever created before.

S. K. – In our interpretation of the panorama, our work merges a wide range of technologies, many aligned with trends in contemporary filmmaking, including 3D computer graphics, volumetric video, 3D modeling and motion capture. We’re very focused on technical development and are geeks about cameras and configuration, often building our own setups from scratch to achieve the resolution, speed, and stereographic features we need. 

S. K. – Though technology is improving, we still find ourselves innovating to fit our exact requirements. Since everything was meticulously built before we started capturing the images, this second part of the process was (more or less!) perfect. 

S. K. – Given the panorama’s hyperbolic form, where the center appears smaller and edges elongated, conventional image processing software couldn’t interpret it correctly. This led us to develop custom additions to existing software to stitch the images seamlessly, adapting the computer vision algorithms to account for the unique distortion. 

S. K. – This solution worked exceptionally well, and we’ve now presented the first stage of the installation at GIFF. While our lab have  a fully immersive 360-degree 3D system, while the version at GIFF was shown on a smaller, single-screen display, though still impressive at one-third of the original size.

S. K. – It’s a thrilling experience and what makes the experience so compelling is its fully interactive mode. In the traditional setup from the 19thC, viewers would stand 10 meters away from the panorama, but in our digital re-creation, they can zoom in on the smallest brushstrokes, revealing details invisible to the naked eye. 

S. K. – This regards the materiality of the painting. But then we have its historical narratives, which juxtaposes 19th-century artistic interpretation with 15th-century subject matter, allowing us to explore these layers with active interpretation.

S. K. – Additionally, we’ve incorporated 3D objects sourced from the Landes Museum in Zurich and the Bernisches Historisches Museum, brought to life through photogrammetry. 

S. K. – These artifacts, alongside volumetric video captures of reenacted figures (fighters, looters), add a series of motion-captured augmentations, reanimating scenes from the panorama without directly animating the painting itself.

S. K. – To enrich the sensory experience, we’ve developed a smell necklace that releases scents corresponding to elements in the panorama. Historical records often describe battlefields as overwhelmingly putrid, so we recreated these odors synthetically, including human sweat, blood, horse manure, the scent of the lake, and countryside aromas, along with the smell of paint and incense. 12 distinct scents trigger in real-time as viewers look at the different scenes. 

S. K. – In addition, the entire experience is sonified. Our lab setup features a 33-channel ambisonic sound system for precise, immersive sound placement, creating a highly detailed audio landscape. The public exhibit at GIFF, while reduced to four channels, still provided an impressive, immersive sound experience.

Comparing narratives in THE PANORAMA

S. K. – THE PANORAMA was recently presented in Hong Kong in a 360 LED system format, as part of Swiss Month in Hong Kong hosted by the Swiss Consulate. It’s the first step of a world tour that will culminate in an extended exhibition (from February 2026 to May 2027) at the Bernisches Historisches Museum in Bern. The exhibition will incorporate a 360 system from our lab, with four interactive ways to experience the painting: guided tours, self-guided tours, a large-scale movie, and a generative AI installation where visitors can type prompts to manipulate the painting.

S. K. – This approach allows for a multifaceted experience with an artwork that holds immense significance for Switzerland. At the same time, it highlights the differences between the original historical narrative and the political context that shaped it. 

S. K. – Historians often find pieces like the Murten Panorama problematic: it’s a romanticized, historically inaccurate portrayal. But only by engaging with it can we unpack these multiple layers and recognize how these narratives are distorted for political means: the Swiss portrayed as triumphant, the Burgundian forces as distraught and disheveled despite their gold armor.

S. K. – Bringing audiences into this story in such a dramatic, immersive way is invaluable. This will be especially relevant in 2026, marking the 550th anniversary of the Battle of Murten, with celebrations across Switzerland, particularly in Murten itself. We have several things planned for that event. And next year, from August 28, 2025 to January 18, 2026, THE PANORAMA will also be displayed on a 120-degree, 9-meter-wide screen at the Museum für Gestaltung in an exhibition titled The Museum of the Future, which explores 17 experimental approaches to museum displays. We present five works for that show, all with completely different strategies. 

Curatorial perspectives across cultures and technologies 

S. K. – The goal for the works we create for an exhibition is to hold their integrity for a global audience, particularly when positioned as artworks. That distinction is key; if a piece is framed didactically, it invites countless restrictions from politically correct standpoints. But as an artwork, it’s accessible to everyone, and audiences interpret it differently. In fact, you can embed an artwork within a didactics exhibition, and it opens the world. The positioning is essential. 

S. K. – Furthermore, while we don’t usually adapt the core piece to the different countries, we often create exhibitions for specific countries. For example, in Turkey, we’ve worked with local musicians and artists, creating something highly specific to the region that then can travel globally as an integral work. Resonance of place is vital.

S. K. – All this because it’s important to handle cultural resonances with care. Even when experimenting with animations or generative technologies, you need to ensure that the result is harmonious and can be read by the people whose culture you’re dealing with. This prevents it from becoming an act of cultural appropriation. 

S. K. – We want people from that culture to be the first to appreciate the work. Others can then interpret it as they will.

S. K. – Another aspect to keep in mind is that the digital era, paired with the movement toward repatriation, presents a unique intersection. To mention an example, we’re currently working on a large-scale project in India focusing on digital twins of Buddhist artifacts, utilizing blockchain technology and a touring exhibition to explore this seminal Buddhist sculpture. The idea is to examine how digital twins might support repatriation and engage diverse audiences. Although Buddhism is a minority religion in India, about 0.8% of the population, this project investigates the reactions across Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and Jain communities, alongside pilgrimage communities, assessing how they respond to the sculpture’s presence as a powerful digital replica.

S. K. – Museums were initially skeptical of these digital representations, fearing they might detract from physical artifacts. Now, however, we’re able to create incredibly high-fidelity, interactive experiences that often convey nuances impossible to capture in the original object. So the need for a robust framework for them to navigate the digital sphere is of the utmost relevance. In this regard, I’ve recently completed a book titled Deep Fakes: A Critical Lexicon of Digital Museology, aimed at equipping museum directors, curators and workers, with a new language to assess these digital approaches. It moves beyond media hype, providing a structured philosophical discourse that’s applied rather than theoretical and heavy.

S. K. – This interplay between physical and digital in museums is an interesting dynamic. Traditionally, curators focused on physical exhibitions have largely dismissed the digital sphere. They’re not concerned about what happens on the Internet. Their last bastion of curatorial authority is on the floor of the gallery. That’s where they still hold power, as they should. 

S. K. – Yet, many of these curators aren’t fully technically informed or versed in computational thinking. It’s not a personal limitation but rather a reflection of the need to evolve curatorial practice with radical interventions. The conventional route of outsourcing digital elements to creative industries limits curators’ direct involvement, resulting in lost opportunities for their creative input. In contrast, a hands-on approach would lead to more enriched and knowledgeable curatorial practices.

Engaging users: to robustify and simplify the digital element

S. K. – Digital perspectives in museums encounter many systemic problems, and experimental works might actually help. But experimenting doesn’t mean having to deal with something that will easily break down …and that’s certainly an automatic association that many commentators make.

S. K. – In fact, there’s a prevailing belief that “if it’s technical, it’s bound to break”, which understandably makes curators hesitant to complex digital installations. 

S. K. – That’s why at our Laboratory for Experimental Museology (eM+) we work rigorously to make every system we design durable and dependable. If it can’t meet these standards, it doesn’t belong in the museum space. Simple rebooting aside, systems should function consistently, as broken exhibits are unfortunately common.

S. K. – Interface simplicity is also essential. Devices like head-mounted displays (HMDs) might appeal to tech-savvy users but often alienate the average visitor, especially in terms of usability and hygiene. It’s a high barrier for many museumgoers, and poor experiences can discourage them from future engagement. 

S. K. – In contrast, open, robust, multi-social and multi-user interfaces tend to be much more successful for broad audiences. These tools are now immensely powerful, though, and the risk of packing too much functionality into one device is always there and it can overwhelm users. Effective design is about doing one thing well rather than several things poorly. Simplicity is key for a successful interface for a large public.

S. K. – Some experimental ideas, like our smell necklace, are not necessarily practical, of course. These are better suited for VIP tours because of their upkeep requirements. Generally, museums benefit from very straightforward technology. But I still favor true stereographic 3D for its immersive power. In this regard, it’s a pity that 3D cinema failed, as it’s an incredibly potent medium for kinesthetic engagement. The production pipelines were not fully embraced, leading to subpar experiences in many 3D films, but I still believe in it. 

S. K. – Another key aspect of museums is creating spaces where people can lie down. Personally, I’m a big fan of the full-dome experience. It’s incredibly effective because when people lie down, they truly engage with it. These interactive systems can captivate visitors for hours, offering support in a way that standing and passively observing a display just can’t match.

S. K. – Interactive experiences in museums reveal fascinating audience behaviors, in general, however. We’ve observed that about 40% of visitors prefer to watch others engage with interactive exhibits rather than interacting directly. These passive spectators form a unique part of the experience, much like a theater audience, while another 60% actively want to interact. There’s a dynamic exchange where spectators often guide the primary user, and eventually, users train others, creating a self-sustaining interactive cycle. It’s a remarkable example of organic engagement.

Exploration, living traditions, engagement

S. K. – There are three things that I love the most in my work. First, my background as a maritime archaeologist instilled a love for exploration and full immersion. Now I get to explore these vast, intricate images, and it’s incredibly addictive.

S. K. – I also have a degree in the phenomenology of religion, which has led me to work on numerous religious sites, focusing on how communities maintain intangible cultural heritage and on the question: how can we even begin to archive something that’s living? 

S. K. – Questions like this led us to longitudinal relationships with the communities we want to study. For instance, we’ve been documenting Kung Fu masters in Hong Kong for the last 14 years, resulting in around 15 global exhibitions. Just recently, a PhD graduate from our team completed a study on the “ontologies of motion”, which led us to explore deep meditations on embodied knowledge systems.

S. K. – Similarly, I’ve been working with Aboriginal artists in Australia to bring sacred knowledge into the public domain in fully embodied ways. These long-term relationships with communities are essential to capturing living traditions.

S. K. – And finally, the most thrilling part is when audiences engage with the work. The art comes alive through participation, which is essential for interactive installations: if nobody’s participating, there’s no work. So that is the moment of truth. That is the moment of pure pleasure for someone who works on these topics.

S. K. – Another thing I am fascinated by are world expositions or world exhibitions, the world fair! They are fascinating experiments in mass spectacle and immersive media. They’re how governments give a vision of the future and get the public to engage with  their ideas. You can find incredibly interesting experiments there. They really are unique spaces for pushing the limits of immersive media and inventing the future, often with big budgets and mass appeal.

S. K. – Innovations like Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes, fitted with lights to simulate a global data visualization, where all the data of the world could be put on this machine in real time to allow people to see the whole world at once, were visionary. 

S. K. – In the 1970s, the Pepsi-Cola Pavilion at the Osaka World’s Fair in 1970 enveloped visitors in dynamic mists and a mirrored interior that altered perception, creating a living, responsive environment. These ideas are continuously picked up again and again and elaborated. 

S. K. – Expos remain important spaces for experimentation and innovation. They have transformed people’s lives, especially in earlier times when media saturation was lower. Commentaries from people who visited the Montreal Expo in 1967, for instance, reveal how deeply these experiences resonated with them, forming lasting memories and even life-changing perspectives. 

S. K. – Today, with more media outlets available, the landscape is different, but Japan’s Expo culture remains vibrant. Japan’s high media sophistication means that visitors will instinctively understand and engage with advanced interfaces, making it an inspiring location for new installations and possibilities.