Dimensions in Testimony: Engaging or Distracting?
As time progresses, historical narratives are told from a second or third-person perspective. For recent historical events, such as the Holocaust, more survivors pass away, creating a stronger urge to protect and record their stories. The USC Shoah Foundation has created a way to record and deliver this information in a more empathetic medium.
Dimensions in Testimony is an interactive biography in which a holographic image of a Holocaust survivor answers visitors’ questions in real-time. The hologram replicates a conversation, and while it cannot replace a conversation between two human beings, it serves to create a dialogue and document and share the survivor’s experiences.
Dimensions in Testimony is offered in 11 museums and through the USC Shoah Foundation’s website. Most museums offer interviews from various survivors on a schedule to ensure all stories are told. The Dimensions in Testimony experience may be a theater, like the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum, or an interactive exhibit, like the Museum of Jewish Heritage.
Each Dimension in Testimony interview was filmed by over 100 cameras and by asking each survivor around 1,500 questions. According to the USC Shoah Foundation, during the filming of Dimensions in Testimony, the survivors maintain control during their interviews. The Dimensions in Testimony team creates personal relationships with those they interview. This relationship makes the interview more realistic for those museum visitors who interact with Dimensions in Testimony.
When an audience interacts with Dimensions in Testimony, they ask the hologram a question; then, the responses are created from speech recognition to give an appropriate answer. The hologram provides the semblance that the survivor is looking at and responding to the audience, a unique experience within a museum setting. This experience is creating a future of museum exhibitions that might be more engaging than just videos or films used in the museum.
My first interaction with the Dimensions in Testimony Theater was at the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum in January of 2021 when I visited the museum with a friend. I was amazed by the technology and the opportunity to “speak” with a Holocaust survivor. I listened with intensity as she told the story of her time in the Holocaust and what her life was like afterward, but once it was time for the audience to ask questions, the experience felt less engaging. However, could the use of holograms prove to be too distracting?
Dimensions in Testimony require audience participation to be effective and engaging. When I visited the theater, only four people were present: my friend and I, and a mother with her daughter. The young girl asked questions from the handout provided when we walked in, and I struggled to come up with questions of my own that felt worth asking. My friend asked the “survivor” a particular question, and he and I were both surprised when the hologram had an answer to it.
As we left the museum that day, all we could discuss was the Dimensions in Testimony program. Still, our discussion was more focused on the technology and the fact that the prerecorded hologram had a response to the specific question he had asked. Very little of our conversation was focused on the content of what the survivor had told us.
Is it possible that introducing technology such as holograms into museums will distract visitors from the content offered? Based on my experience, the audience did not engage with the Dimensions in Testimony hologram, and this lack of engagement might have also detracted from the experience. After another chance to interact with the hologram, the conversation that I had with my friend would likely focus less on the technology and more on the content the hologram offers.
Dimensions in Testimony is a way for institutions to strive towards “bottom-up storytelling.” Using holograms creates greater dialogue by connecting digital content, the museum audience, and the testimonies of survivors. However, the experience’s success relies on how willing the audience is to engage with it. Once the audience gets over the initial shock and awe of the technology and begins to feel like they are having a conversation, they will be better able to appreciate the testimony the Holocaust survivor shares with them.
