Coal Crossroads

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Overview

I explored translating documentary artifacts of interview recordings and journalistic photography into interactive, 3D space (in VR).

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Inspiration

In the spring of 2017, I wrote a short film screenplay that was inspired in large part by:

• research done on the Clearkfork Community Center in Eagan, TN
• its leaders Marie Cirillo, Carol Judy, and Marie Webster
• and the complex socioeconomic climate of Appalachian stereotypes, coal mining practices, drug addictions, population and property loss, intimate connections to land, foraging, and grassroots community-building

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During summer 2018, I intended to run a film workshop in collaboration with youth in the community while working on a non-actor-based, semi-narrative film with the help of a CARAS grant, but I did not receive funding and had to cancel plans. However, I had been able to make a stop in Eagan for a night in August 2017, document relevant sites around town, and record a chat about community projects, living conditions, dreams, and memories with Marie Webster, the current director of the center.

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I aimed to open space for a wise, feminine voice drawing from experiences at the crossroads of:

• urban-rural educational exchange programs
• local resources shipped to distant markets
• land degradation and conservation
• health and illness
• industrial growth and sustainability

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Approach

The new media-shaping tools I've learned in Unity offered a fitting context to retrieve that documentation from the archives and give it life in a virtual documentary environment:

• Ambient sounds of a creek flowing and traffic zooming mapped respectively around 3D models of a mountainous valley and high-rise city establish a contrasting psychological backdrop of rural-urban, calmed-anxious, grounded-estranged
• The line of telephone poles suggests the historical development of industrialization based around changes in energy use
• Floating images of Eagan's contrasting scenes of education and community centers, rural habitations, resource extraction, and industrial waste are equipped with similarly themed audio tracks from my interview with Marie
• The images expand and the audio plays when the viewer’s headset reticle hovers within an image’s borders

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Outcome

An innovative form of immersive journalism that tells the story of the town of Eagan, Tennessee’s socioeconomic conditions and environmental impacts from a community director’s varied perspectives.

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I hope this brings new perspectives on the larger context of urban lifestyles, the conventional representation of Appalachian locals, and how to practice the arts of living on a damaged planet.

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Demo