Berliner Sehen: A Hypermedia Documentary Integrating the Study of German Culture and Language

Berliner sehen is a hypermedia documentary for German Studies that relies on an extensive collection of shared archives and the Internet to form a collaborative learning environment for beginning to advanced-level students. Focusing on Berlin, this documentary features live-recorded video and authentic historical documents that depict the cultural, social, and political life of the city.

The hypermedia format of Berliner sehen  encourages students to investigate material in context from interchangeable perspectives, to create their own hypermedia mini-documentaries, and to collaborate with other students on the expansion of the archives. Berliner sehen  advances the genre of the interactive documentary in the French videodisc Dans le quartier de Paris and the Japanese CD-ROM The Star Festival (currently in beta test), the interactive archive in the Shakespeare Interactive Archive  (currently in beta test), and the interactive narrative A la rencontre de Philippe, all pioneered at MIT. The design of Berliner sehen  represents a crucial next step in the development of a new generation of learning environments for foreign languages and cultures.

The contemporary video core of Berliner sehen consists of several hours of natural conversations with Berlin residents from different social backgrounds. Spoken in authentic German, they acquaint students with the many facets of individual lives. Together with the extensive archives of texts, images, historical audio and video, these conversations form an expansive network that engages students in exploring key cultural issues from diverse points of view. The footage for Berliner sehen was filmed during Summer 1995 by the Berlin-based German documentary video artists INTERACT, who worked in close collaboration with project directors Crocker and Fendt to create a video expressly designed for the hypermedia format of this project.