Lessons of Auschwitz is a social experiment that aims to show how history can be reimagined by younger generations through digital art. The project honours the 75th anniversary of the liberation in 1945 of the Auschwitz concentration camp by the Red Army.
To mark it, our team brought nine students from a Moscow high school – aged 13 to 16 – to the Memorial in Poland to personally undergo this experience. After the trip, we asked them to express their reactions in VR under the creative guidance of Russia's leading XR artist, Denis Semionov.
The music score is by Peter Theremin, great-grandson of Leon Theremin — the creator of the theremin, world's first electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer.
The students used Tilt Brush to draw their 3D images — a program that among many other features also syncs sound and movement — a perfect match for the eerie vibrations of the theremin, an instrument creating sound from electrical waves.
Teaming up with 'Phygitalism' Studio, we filmed the children using volumetric video — a technique capturing three-dimensional space, allowing for the images to be transformed directly into 3D where these same images would later react to sound waves.
Part of a versatile social media documentary project, Lessons of Auschwitz won numerous awards worldwide including a nomination at the 42nd Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards.