Bringing Stories to Life in a Virtual World
About the Goethe-Institut:
The Goethe-Institut is the cultural institute of the Federal Republic of Germany with a global presence. We facilitate international cultural exchange, promote access to the German language, and support the development of culture and science without borders.
Project Overview:
The goal of this project is to create an innovative "Immersive Scenic Reading" in which a storyteller and a digital artist collaborate to bring selected excerpts from the Goethe-Institut's digital library, Onleihe, to life within a custom-built virtual reality environment.
The final immersive experience will be accessible to users, allowing them to explore the virtual reality space and engage with its components in a self-guided manner.
Roles and responsibilities:
- Role of the Storyteller: The storyteller will curate excerpts from Onleihe’s media library and combine them into a coherent narrative or dramaturgy. They will record the readings or arrange for someone to do so and produce the recordings for the exhibition. The storyteller will also participate in the live kickoff event in GoetheVRsum.
- Role of the Digital Artist: The digital artist will design an immersive VR experience, enhancing the narrative with interactive elements, soundscapes, and virtual objects. The digital artist will select elements from the GoetheVRsum library (including objects, sounds, etc.) based on the selected texts. They will enhance these elements using other rights-free media (sounds, videos, etc.) to create an interactive installation that can be visited globally within GoetheVRsum.
- Shared Responsibilities:
- The theme for the immersive experience can be freely selected by the tandem, based on literary works available at Onleihe.
- Both tandem partners will participate in the live kickoff event in GoetheVRsum.
Key Information:
- Honorarium: 1000 EUR per person (storyteller and digital artist).
- Availability: Applicants must be available to work on the project with their tandem partner until April, including test runs, meetings, and other preparatory work.
- GoetheVRsum is the digital playground of the Goethe-Institut, hosted by the platform Engage. It is a space for collaborative artistic creation, events, and networking that transcends physical and national boundaries. Click here and learn more about GoetheVRsum.
- Onleihe is the digital library of the Goethe-Institut, offering German literature in both the original language and in translation. Find out more on our website.
Submission Requirements:
- Place of residence is Jordan.
- Language: Proficiency in English is essential. Knowledge of German is considered an advantage.
- Availability to work on this project from February through the end of April 2025, along with a willingness to participate in test runs, meetings, and preparatory work.
Please submit the following:
In addition to your personal and professional information, we will ask for your motivation and request that you complete the following tasks:
- Storyteller: Propose a Theme! Please submit an idea for the theme you wish to explore, based on available literature in Onleihe. We encourage you to choose a theme that offers rich literary potential and opportunities for creating immersive experiences.
- Digital Artist: Enhance the Reading Experience! Please suggest ideas on how you would enhance the reading experience of the literary excerpt provided below in a virtual world like GoetheVRsum. This could include interactive elements and audio-visual components.
by Franz Kafka
Translated by David Wyllie
One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.
“What’s happened to me?” he thought. It wasn’t a dream. His room, a proper human room although a little too small, lay peacefully between its four familiar walls. A collection of textile samples lay spread out on the table—Samsa was a travelling salesman—and above it there hung a picture that he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and housed in a nice, gilded frame. It showed a lady fitted out with a fur hat and fur boa who sat upright, raising a heavy fur muff that covered the whole of her lower arm towards the viewer.
Gregor then turned to look out the window at the dull weather. Drops of rain could be heard hitting the pane, which made him feel quite sad. “How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense”, he thought, but that was something he was unable to do because he was used to sleeping on his right, and in his present state couldn’t get into that position. However hard he threw himself onto his right, he always rolled back to where he was. He must have tried it a hundred times, shut his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to look at the floundering legs, and only stopped when he began to feel a mild, dull pain there that he had never felt before.
Deadline:
Please submit your application by 15/02/2025 by filling out this form.
Submission Criteria:
- Experience (20%)
- Motivation (30%)
- Quality of submission (50%): originality, relevance, and feasibility of the suggested theme and/or proposed ideas for digital elements for the literary excerpt.
Additional Information:
- Selected applicants will receive guidance and support from the Goethe-Institut team in curating the literary content and designing the VR environment.
Questions:
If you have any questions, please contact us via vergabe-amman@goethe.de.