The Settlement Exhibition (2006)

ART+COM was awarded the contract to design a holistic media concept for the City Museum of Reykjavik. During the excavation works in 2001 for a hotel in the centre of Iceland's capital, the oldest proof of settlement in Reykjavik was found. The ruins of a longhouse and of a turf wall can now be visited "on site": The museum is situated in the basement of the new hotel; the longhouse's former main room is part of today's exhibition hall.

An interactive media installation presents the ruin, dated around 930 AD, the way it probably looked when occupied. The Multi-User installation resurrects the inhabitants as ghosts and shows them in their daily activities. The pater familias is welcoming a guest, servants take care of the livestock and the kitchen, the housewife is dyeing cloth, a child is playing. Museum visitors gain information by activating texts and images telling more on life in Iceland's Middle Ages. A spot light is also directed onto the relics found in the ruin. Touched by the visitor, they will show where they were located in the longhouse and explain their function. Additionally, the purpose of the building's different rooms is described.

A second media station shows the hall in its probable former state. Following with his finger the circles surrounding the longhouse on an interface, the visitor will experience 360° flights around the building on a giant screen. In animations, the building of the longhouse is simulated and the different layers are depicted. Thanks to the connection with a real-time camera, the museum's visitors are displayed as inhabitants of the building. They assume the same ghostly presence as the virtual inhabitants of the interactive multi-user installation.

Screens integrated into the walls open a look onto the landscape surrounding Reykjavik. They are connected to radar sensors, activating the animations only when visitors approach them. Furthermore, diffusers let the scent of fresh sea weed waft into the room.

The permanent exhibition was opened on May 12, 2006.

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