Virtual Cluster Space as Best Practice in Science Communication

»Matters of Activity« was expanding its activities in science communication and has been starting the further development of its »Virtual Cluster Space« in October 2021. This aims to present and experience the research work of various MoA projects and topics in an innovative, interactive, fascinating and expandable way in order to make users inside and outside of our research community curious, excited and to engage them in exchange.

Cluster Member Antje Nestler presented the »Virtual Cluster Space«, as a best-practice example of a virtual exhibition and conference format at this year's Forum Wissenschaftskommunikation. The current version of MoA's Virtual Cluster space can be visited here:
virtualspace.matters-of-activity.de

For the implementation, the preliminary work and experiences from the successful Annual Conference in 2020 will be taken up. As was the case then for the individual lectures, knowledge spaces are now to be created – initially for the six MoA projects and the Annual Conference 2021 – on the basis of 360° spheres, which are navigable and in which further information such as text, audio, video and also complete websites can be placed. The content can be constantly expanded, re-arranged and exchanged over the coming years so that the presentation can be adapted to current developments and always offers something new for the visitors. Technically, the project will be realized with the open-source web technology »Marzipano« in order to make the developed content and the written code reusable for other projects.

In a second phase in the course of the coming year, the »Virtual Cluster Space« will be further developed for use as an interactive virtual reality space and will thus be available for various VR applications and multi-user scenarios. Based on preliminary work by »Object Space Agency« and »gamelab.berlin« and on the idea of the glass elevator developed for the »Stretching Materialites« exhibition, spaces are to be designed in which, for example, 3D objects can be explored, experiments conducted and playful elements integrated.

The 360° rooms for the six cluster projects and for the Annual Conference in 2021 will be the first to be created in the coming weeks, followed by rooms for smaller research groups and cross-project activities.