AIRIS Lab internship student Eden Park received ‘Best Project Award’ for the “2023 Convergence Factory Project” with her project named “Heritage Change-Up” at Gyeongbuk Contents Korea Lab, an organization affiliated with Korea Creative Content Agency(한국콘텐츠진흥원).
‘Convergence Factory Project’ aims to support creators with excellent ideas in the field of content, based on the Gyeongsangbuk-do heritage, so that their ideas can be connected to creation and entrepreneurship. Earlier, the Development Institute selected 8 teams in August.
The project, “Heritage Change-Up,” attempted digitalization of natural and cultural heritage. Eden Park has captured the sound resources of Pohang Arboretum, a natural cultural heritage of Gyeongsangbuk-do, and used Dolby plugin to mix them in 3D.
The virtual technology market, which provides immersive experiences, is expected to have tremendous growth potential, with its size projected to increase from $14.55 billion in 2021 to $160.1 billion in 2028. The convergence of culture technology and the cultural industry in this market is actively promoting the digitalization of cultural heritage, a policy that has been in place since the late 2010s. However, the content incorporating 3D audio technology, which has recently begun to gain popularity, is still under research.
The combination of cultural heritage and advanced technology can be seen as a groundbreaking meeting in terms of preserving and restoring the heritage supported by science and technology, creating new value, and discovering new industries and job opportunities based on the development of original conservation technologies. The goal of this convergence factory project was also to combine the beautiful natural and cultural heritage of Gyeongsangbuk-do with advanced technology, and to create new content that includes preservation, restoration, and originality. The final selected content was soundScape. SoundScape, which focuses on connectivity and relationships rather than confrontation with nature, aims to prove the fact that human activities are intricately connected to the natural environment, rather than being separate from it. It was evaluated to be in line with the business value in terms of recording, restoring, and recreating natural and cultural heritage.
By recording the sound resources of the arboretum, using an ambisonic microphone, Eden Park went through the sound editing and design process by using various plug-ins including Dolby, she created a 3D soundscape and music content through sound design.
Park is scheduled to participate in VC meetings and IR Pitching events given to outstanding project selectors based on this content and BM in the future.
Through these kind of opportunities, we hope to further gain more practical skills of immersive production and how it can be applied in various fields. Also, we expect that through interactions with various fields, more advanced and uninhibited research activities will be continued.