Nikki Dunsire

Abby’s Dream Journey

Abby’s Dream Journey is an immersive story about the journey of a woman who lost her sight at the age of eight while playing with friends in the fields along the river’s edge, in the central Ethiopian city of Areka.

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Spatial sounds of the river and sounds from our journey through Ethiopia will take you there as you hear her story and experience her dream memories. Participants will experience a 3D audio of a tea ceremony and moments spent documenting Abby’s story.

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The first part of this presentation was presented at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism in Portland, Oregon. A WebStory and immersive audio story was shared by Mary Anne Funk during her Master’s in Multimedia Journalism terminal project. This was open to the public.

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The second phase involved a traveling in-person mixed media immersive 360 audio story and immersive sound journey with a tactile experience exhibit. The entire project was about creating a shared experience and is focused on accessibility.

 

Abby’s Dream Journey was an in-person mixed media, immersive 360 audio story, and immersive sound experience with a tactile component. It was about the journey of a woman who lost her sight at the age of eight while playing with friends in the fields along the river’s edge, in the central Ethiopian city of Areka. Spatial sounds of the river and sounds from our journey through Ethiopia took you there as you heard her story and experience her dream memories. Visitors listened to 3D audio of a tea ceremony and moments spent documenting Abby’s story.

 

This immersive project had multiple listening stations. Each listening station had large photo prints representing the sounds and stories that visitors heard, and each station contained smaller tactile images that were copies of the larger prints, in addition to brail stands that explained what each listening station was about before they listened to the audio.

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This entire project was about creating a shared experience and was focused on accessibility. This was an important step to developing immersive content that could be shared with people who are blind.