Underground Railroad
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Flight to Freedom: Escape on the Underground Railroad
An Immersive Learning Environment in Second Life
Philip Mallory Jones, Lead Design Artist
The Aesthetic Technologies Lab
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(IN DEVELOPMENT)
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“Running freed more slaves than Lincoln.” Old African American saying
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Flight to Freedom: Escape on the Underground Railroad marks an innovative synthesis of immersive experience design, compelling interactive narrative, distinctive aesthetic approach, and diverse educational content delivery. It will incorporate cutting-edge design and technical elements at the forefront of synthetic world development.
Visitors to this immersive environment can explore interpretive replicas of Underground Railroad sites, investigate the history of this proactive freedom movement, and experience the challenges encountered by African-Americans attempting to escape from bondage via the Underground Railroad, circa 1850.
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Initial prototype development for Flight to Freedom: Escape on the Underground Railroad is enabled through the synthetic world platform Second Life .
Second Life is being used as a dynamic laboratory for collaborative development, presentation and evaluation of the prototype, and my on-going research in emerging pedagogies and design practice in creation of immersive environments for creative expression and learning/instruction.
Flight to Freedom: Escape on the Underground Railroad enables the visitor to access and interact with the content and the environment through multiple modes and points-of-view (pov). The fully realized installation, occupying one full Second Life region (sim) will be organized as a terrain motif, interpreting the Ohio River Valley region bounded by Northern Kentucky / Western Virginia (now West Virginia) / Ohio.
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Traveling overland, along backcountry roads, and waterways, the visitor encounters 3D scenes and tableaux that present places, times and events that illuminate the history and significance of the Underground Railroad and the broader Abolitionist movement, over its several hundred year duration.
Some of these locations are a synthesis of image, sound, media and text compositions richly embedded in an interpretive 3D tableaux.
At other locations, the visitor enters a real-time adventure, in first-person pov. The visitor becomes participant as an African-American fugitive, in the 1850’s, attempting to escape from bondage on a Southern plantation, to freedom in Ohio and beyond, via The Underground Railroad. The participant interacts with and manipulates the environment, moving intuitively, selecting objects to examine, and interacting with other characters.
The participant strives to survive and reach the goal through various scenarios and challenges, using observation and analysis, daring, ingenuity, group effort, and wits. Crucial to this effort is tapping the knowledge, experience and wisdom of in-world characters (scripted and live), embedded supplemental materials, and other real-time participants.
The challenges in Flight to Freedom: Escape on the Underground Railroad are not puzzles, as in a typical “game”, but the real-world situations, hazards, obstacles, and challenges that the fugitives faced. Hazards can cause injury or illness, which handicap the participant/group. Bad decisions, wrong turns, etc. might result in capture, punishment and return to bondage. The participant might employ evasion and concealment tactics and strategies to elude fugitive-hunters (scripted and “live” avatars), while traveling roads, waterways, and through towns. Tips on evasion and concealment, including disguises and camouflage, come from other characters, scripted animation sequences, and through embedded objects (books, maps, diagrams, etc.).
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The participant navigates by the night sky, locating the North Star and other markers; cryptology, or reading the secret signs in the environment (quilts, flags, lanterns, marks on trees, etc.); and deciphering the coded messages in field hollers, worship songs (“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”, “Go Down Moses”, and others), and other verbal communications. Other characters give information and make suggestions (which may or may not be true or reliable) for choices and/or courses of action. Among the other characters that the participant will encounter are Conductors on the Underground Railroad, other black and white Abolitionists, other fugitives and slaves, the plantation Overseer and his pursuit posse, local sheriffs and vigilantes, bounty hunters, and treacherous black informers.
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The situations and challenges in Flight to Freedom: Escape on the Underground Railroad are based on authentic fugitive narratives, eyewitness accounts of Abolitionists and slaveholders, and contemporary newspaper reports. Information on the many devices used by slaves, fugitives, and abolitionists to communicate will be embedded in the environment and scenes.
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The visitor will have many opportunities to learn about the real-life experience of escape via the Underground Railroad, as he/she stops at URR stations and impromptu places along the way, and interacts with other characters. They might tell the visitor about the road ahead, dangers and opportunities, also what they’ve seen and heard, and about their own lives (derived from actual slave narratives and accounts). The visitor will also find various print documents, such as African-American newspapers, Abolitionist pamphlets, and WANTED posters. The challenging immersive drama of Flight to Freedom: Escape on the Underground Railroad will enable visitors to better understand the harrowing experience of fugitives seeking freedom via the Underground Railroad.
Flight to Freedom: Escape on the Underground Railroad will incorporate unique avatar animations, behaviors, and costumes/appearance, created through motion-capture and 3D modeling/animation technologies.
Production Workshops/Studio Courses: Flight to Freedom: Escape on the Underground Railroad is a vehicle for investigation of creative and design possibilities in synthetic worlds, and the nature of the immersive experience. Areas include: video / audio / animation / 3D modeling & render / custom avatar appearance & behavior / scripting in synthetic worlds / creative writing, set design and lighting, dramatic writing and performance.
Curricular Extensions: Flight to Freedom: Escape on the Underground Railroad will be a powerful learning vehicle, as the more the participant knows about the actual history, geography, etc., the more he/she will be able to discern and discover in the environment, and the richer becomes the simulation experience. The simulation experience creates opportunities for students and teachers to be involved in learning and applying information in an expanded fashion. The inquiry, learning and stimulation of the imagination happen beyond the physical classroom, in the temporal terrains. The many problems and obstacles to overcome along the journey provide opportunities for investigation in a variety of subjects (astronomy, biology, geography, cartography, agronomy, ecology, textiles, cultural practice, etc.). The process of gathering information and devising solutions will help the participant develop skills in observation and analysis, creative synthesis of information, reading and arithmetic, following oral and written directions, working with fellow fugitives (optional), using available data, etc.
Flight to Freedom: Escape on the Underground Railroad, in its full realization, will be accessible on both the adult and teen SL grids, and other synthetic worlds. It will also link to its own web resource center. This will provide teachers’ guides & other supplemental materials; and discussion forums where students/participants can compare notes on strategies and problem solving. It will be a mechanism for on-going feedback, critique, assessment, evaluation, and an evolving resource collection, providing additional learning materials and reference sources. It will link to other on-line guides to Underground Railroad sites and resources.
Flight to Freedom: Escape on the Underground Railroad is intended to facilitate investigation of emerging paradigms and practice in the design of instruction and learning environments by scholars and practitioners in art, education, and the Humanities. The launch of the fully realized synthetic world environment will coincide with a symposium, at the host institution, on the use of synthetic worlds as a mode for creative and cultural expression, and educational practice.
Prototype development of Flight to Freedom: Escape on the Underground Railroad in Second Life has begun on the Ohio University SL campus.
Resource and Technical Collaborators: Katherine Milton, Ph.D., educational media specialist; Vibert Cambridge, PhD, Dept. of Communications, Ohio University; Deanda Johnson, Coordinator, African-American Research and Service Institute, Ohio University; Christopher Keesey, Second Life education and design specialist; Teresa Franklin, PhD, Dept. of Education, Ohio University; Ernest Perry, educational media specialist, National Underground Railroad Freedom Center; Multicultural Genealogical Center, Nelsonville, OH; Dorothy Mallory Jones, historian/writer; Patricia Thomas, actor/writer; Stephen Mark, photographer, Underground Railroad expert.
