The Memory Lane Museum Complex remembers the accomplishments of the Soviet Red
Army with a uniquely immersive and interactive museum experience and a size and scope like no other. Reece Webb finds out how immersive AV can bring history to life with state-of-the-art audience engagement.
The Memory Lane Museum Complex in Kubinka, Russia, required a gargantuan, one of a kind AV enhancement to bring its unique educational visitor experience to life. The task was massive: To create a jaw dropping installation that pays respect to the millions of Soviet soldiers and citizens who endured the Great Patriotic War (Eastern Front of World War Two).
The complex sits at the heart of the 5,500 hectares Patriot Park, a Russian military-themed visitor attraction in a fortress-like complex that surrounds the main cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces, located at the centre of the complex.
The museum encompasses a staggering 35 galleries and exhibition halls, providing an immersive, interactive educational experience that relies on projection, audio and creative design. The visitor’s journey through the museum spans 1,418 steps, representative of the 1,418 days of battle that the Soviet Union endured during the war.
The Memory Lane Museum Complex called upon systems integrator Avilex to carry out this epic installation, having worked on AV projects at the Patriot Park before as Alexey Samokhin, creative director, Avilex, clarified: “We had already built several projects within Patriot Park, which we still support, and they chose us to do this because we have a reputation for completing huge projects with ‘impossible’ deadlines.
“Our first task was the sound reinforcement for the church. We got this contract about a year ago and had a comfortable time-frame of one year. We then got the task of creating an interactive videowall all around the museum and the museum finally came to us in March this year. We didn’t expect to be responsible for the entire museum!”
The task facing Avilex was as monumental as its subject matter: 35 galleries and exhibition halls, three immersive areas, two AV-centric tunnels, break-out areas and a welcome area all within the timeline of two months. Avilex stepped on site in March 2020 with the objective of having the AV-heavy museum ready to open by the 75th anniversary of the Russian Victory Day on May 9, 2020.
Two years of discussions to agree the concept preceded the March construction start. Samokhin said: “Because of the Covid-19 situation, borders started closing and vendors started saying that it would be impossible to deliver products on time so the choice of equipment was driven by the vendors we could trust and the vendors that were capable of making this project work on time.
“The museum’s concept was 150 pages of pictures explaining what they wanted. This was updated every week. For some halls, we had an unclear vision from the museum of how to deliver the project within the budget and timeline. Some other halls were changed completely. Our part was to design how we could deliver it and specify what kind of equipment we could use to create it. So we had an idea of how each room should look and we started to design how we could deliver it technically within the budget and the timeline.”
Avilex’s approach was to create a museum incorporating physical exhibits from the trenches such as crashed aircraft with stunning LED and projection-mapped backdrops and powerful audio to create an immersive and realistic experience. The whole site is tied together with an Extron control and distribution system that sits at the heart of the museum's operation.
Stepping inside the museum for the first time, guests are greeted by a lobby area dominated by a Leyard 12.1x3.4m LED display with 1.5mm pixel pitch driven by a custom 8K media player, created in TouchDesigner, which provides visitors with information about opening hours, audio guide and guided tours and visitor information.
Visitors then reach an immersive 10x14m entrance tunnel created by Leyard 55-in LCD panels in a 10x14 matrix, displaying content of pre-war life in the Soviet Union and a similar 12x14 matrix exit tunnel paying tribute to the veterans of the war with a never-ending rolling display of portraits of Soviet combatants.
The resolution is huge, around 9,600x7,500 pixels for the first tunnel and 11,520x7,560 pixels for the end tunnel, which includes a notch for real candles for visitors to be lit.
Samokhin: “For such huge resolution, we faced an issue with volume. When the volume of the content exceeded the volume of the hard drive, we found that the fastest SSD available was lower than what we needed for the content!”
"It doesn't matter if we use stereo, 5.1 or any other format. We have a similar configuration in each hall which makes it simpler and easier to carry out repairs with interchangeable parts." - Alexey Samokhin, Avilex
Moving forward, guests are greeted by a poignant ‘river of time’ interactive display, an interactive videowall which showcases the photographs and information of servicemen and women from the Great Patriotic War. The videowall sits at the heart of the creative vision of the museum, providing visitors with an interactive connection with their past. Visitors can interact with the videowall through an iiyama 43-in surface mounted LCD display, exploring stories of the war.
The huge videowall goes all the way through the gallery, and consists of 714 Leyard 55-in panels in total, displaying photographs of veterans from the archive’s database. This is an online resource where people can add information and photographs of their relatives to the database.
Samokhin explains: “Hearing the stories of each veteran adds a social element, this videowall is the reason why the museum was constructed in the first place, so we could remember the names and faces of everyone who took part in the war. This giant videowall is seamlessly driven by content with a custom visual interface created in VVVV [a programming interface], executing database queries and rendering results in real time.”
Opposite the poignant ‘river of time’ display, a chrono tape runs through the museum chronicling every day of the war as visitors continue through the museum. This is supported by interactive ‘frontline report’ terminals made from two Leyard LCD flat panels, Apart compact speakers and a Dell 22-in interactive tablet which guests can use to manage and explore the on-screen information.
Samokhin: “All the exhibition halls of the museum are linked to each other through the galleries. These are the corridors, decorated by huge posters, made of thousands of small photos of war participants like pixels on one side. It also reserves space for war artefacts from various museums and private collections, as well as projected video chronicles. For us it was quite a tough task to fill all the area and leave no empty space on the walls of all the galleries.
“As a result, the galleries follow a similar format, but we were able to create some unique installations such as the projection mapping of a crashed German plane. In each gallery, we have between one to three Barco G60 laser projectors. We had a lot of more creative ideas, but we were limited by time, so we reserved it for further stages.”
To keep the visitor’s interest through the 1,418 steps through the museum, different types of visual techniques were used. Samokhin explains: “We have three types of immersive halls including five panoramic halls,which have 180-degree screens to create a dynamic background and a physical exhibit.” For each of these halls, five Barco G60 projectors were installed, driven in sync by custom media players created in Touchdesigner by Derivative
To keep the visitor’s interest through the 1,418 steps through the museum, different types of visual techniques were used.
Samokhin explains: “We have three types of immersive halls including five panoramic halls,which have 180-degree screens to create a dynamic background and a physical exhibit.” For each of these halls, five Barco G60 projectors were installed, driven in sync by custom media players created in Touchdesigner by Derivative.
"Hearing the stories of each veteran adds a social element, this videowall is the reason why the museum was constructed in the first place, so we could remember the names and faces of everyone who took part in the war." - Alexey Samokhin, Avilex
“Our initial idea was to use Vioso auto-alignment software to keep all the screens well aligned and blended automatically. In reality, the exhibition people put physical and static exhibits everywhere in front of our projected immersive background so we had a problem with automated camera-based alignment as the camera cannot capture the projection surface correctly with a large cannon in the foreground. We created a combined solution, using Vioso and Touchdesigner together to capture background shape and then bake the content accordingly.”
Avilex implemented a dome projection system in the ‘Battle for the Caucasus’ hall, using a projection surface of four metres built into the physical, rocky scenery. Four Barco projectors with USET lenses were used for this.
“We used the lenses to keep them out of view and this setup works pretty well,” says Samokhin.“Visitors don’t see the projectors and don’t understand how the image is created or where it projects from so it creates an immersive effect.
“In the process of the design, we didn’t have a clear understanding of many aspects of the project, we tried to create a system which is ready for anything. The sound content for example comes as stereo, mono,5.1 or eight channel. To be ready for anything, we decided to use a separate Extron DSP for each hall, with six loudspeakers connected to the separate channels of DSP alongside Dante to do announcements to every gallery and to every hall.They have a USB audio input which can give us up to eight channels of audio from a PC. Using this system we thought it would accept any soundtrack,it was difficult at first but we got it to work well so it doesn’t matter if we use stereo, 5.1