Ekaterinburg:
from factory to the capital of the Urals
About the exhibition
In 2023, Ekaterinburg celebrated its 300th anniversary. Over three centuries, the city has changed not only its name but also its meaning: a factory town, a district town of Perm province, a “mountain” town, the capital of the mining and factory Urals, a merchant town, a powerful industrial center, a stronghold of the state, a science city. On its way it experienced ups and downs, but remained a city of large-scale changes.
Concept
The exposition is based on historical storytelling, supported by key details and artifacts from each era.
The use of artificial intelligence became a conceptual tool for creating the exposition. With the help of a neural network, the project team turned Ekaterinburg into a character that is made up of many images collected over three centuries of the city’s history.
One of the projection walls became a collection of portraits of major figures of the era, among which there are four touchscreens with biographies of famous personalities. The portraits were retouched and animated using parallax effects.
In addition to real people, our team created images of the inhabitants of that era with the help of neural network generation. Thus, the character of the exhibition turns into a person of the XVIII century and tries on his image.
The final room of the exhibition tells about the modern city. Visitors can use an interactive tool to “revive” a black-and-white illustration with a panorama of Ekaterinburg by coloring it. The touchscreens also provide information about the city’s main attractions.
Artistic and technical solutions
The exhibition takes a personalized approach to the rooms and shows attention to period detail to demonstrate the distinctive features of each historical period:
— artifacts from the past that can be touched;
— full-size analog sets that immerse you in the atmosphere of a particular time;
— a detailed summary of the major historical milestones on the tables;
— interactive touchscreens and lightboxes supplemented the general picture with facts, dates and introduced personalities;
— holographic theaters tell about the railway business of the XVIII century and the work of Ural writers;
— in monophones located in the halls, you can listen to the sounds of the city and familiarize yourself with the historical background of a particular era;
— information kiosk, where everyone can record a video congratulating the city, which will remain on the projection wall.