An audio-visual-sensory train journey through the Salzkammergut, on location, on a curated app, and in virtual reality.
A project for the European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl Salzkammergut 2024 by Petra Ardai, Ella Raidel, and Marlene Rutzendorfer.
Regional Express is an audio-visual immersive narrative (immersive storytelling) taking place on a rail route between Gmunden and Bad Aussee, dealing with the cultural and natural heritage of the region. While traveling on the train, an immersive experience is produced as a journey through time and memory as a curated application and in virtual reality (360 Cinematic Film).
The narrative will be developed by the participating population and as a speculative story communicated to the region and an international audience. Like memory, it is composed of fragments, nourished by facts and fiction, and its performative nature allows for new perspectives. The stories expand beyond the personal; the perspective changes its character as the narrator, the glacier affected by climate change, and the transformation of rocks that bear the chronicles of the history of mankind. Along the way, different protagonists get on the train, new encounters occur, and audio-visual landscapes expand memory and imagination. The dramaturgy develops through the parameter of the train as a stage, which is a limited space, the route as the timeline, the travel speed, and the stops as a cadence for a sensory experience.
The project is developed in several medial stages, interlocked at all times and communicated to the public. At the beginning, workshops will serve to generate ideas, and the results will be documented on a website. For the year of the Capital of Culture 2024, the narrative will be presented as an immersive experience and prepared for an international audience as virtual reality into the future.
Instagram: #regionalexpress2024