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IMMERSE Seminar 9/25 Colter Wehmeier

IMMERSE Seminar- Colter Wehmeier: Propositional Modeling: Participatory Visualization for the Architectural Digital Humanities

Event Type
Seminar/Symposium
Sponsor
IMMERSE Center for Immersive Computing
Location
Siebel School of Computing and Data Science Room 2405
Date
Sep 25, 2025   4:00 - 5:00 pm  
Speaker
Colter Wehmeier
Contact
James Planey
E-Mail
planey@illinois.edu
Views
49
Originating Calendar
IMMERSE Seminar Series

Abstract: 

What does it mean to invite museum visitors to anchor their childhood memories onto a model of a long-lost part of their country?

Architectural designers have long relied on incomplete models to foster dialogue and draw knowledge from diverse perspectives. This talk formalizes that practice as Propositional Modeling and demonstrates its translation into playable software for the Architectural Digital Humanities. Here, interpretive affordances transition audiences from passive viewing to active and meaningful contribution. The primary benefit is scaling participation beyond the limits of human facilitation, enabling the synthesis of public knowledge otherwise absent from the historical record. We tested this approach in a Design-Based Research project embedded in a multi-year exhibition on the inaccessible Nicosia International Airport, commemorating the 50th anniversary of its loss. In this museum setting, an interactive 3D reconstruction invited visitors to anchor personal memories to specific locations in space, co-constructing a record of its modern architectural heritage before it exits living memory.

Analysis of multimodal contributions—spatial interactions, recorded testimonials, and workshop observations—supports our premise: through appropriate interface design, propositional models channel storytelling into site-specific commentary that enriches, refines, and challenges expert understanding. This finding suggests how immersive computing can meaningfully support humanistic and public-engaged scholarship.

Colter Wehmeier

  • PhD Candidate, Informatics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  • PhD Candidate, Science and Technology in Archeology and Cultural Heritage, The Cyprus Institute
  • Fiddler Innovation Fellow, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)

I am a designer and game developer working at the intersection of visualization and cultural heritage, in a European field known as the Architectural Digital Humanities. My practice-led research creates and studies playable software for creative collaboration and social learning.

Alongside my doctoral work, I co-direct the Haunted Playstation One, an international community of independent game makers pursuing decentralized worldbuilding as a community of practice.

This seminar will be streamed and recorded via Zoom for remote attendees.

Zoom: https://go.illinois.edu/immerseseminar092525

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