The Chicago 00 Project

The Chicago 00 Project is an award winning partnership between the Chicago History Museum and filmmaker Geoffrey Alan Rhodes to produce and publish a series of site-specific, interactive, immersive multimedia experiences designed to showcase the Museum's film, photo, and sound archive and share Chicago's stories in new and unique ways.

All Chicago00 augmented and virtual reality experiences are free. Each episode explores this new medium for sharing Chicago's rich media archives with the public: history embedded in the objects and places of our city.

Chicago00 is funded by the Princess Grace Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and with additional support from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Columbian Exposition

Century of Progress

Valentines Day Massacre

Eastland Disaster

Spaces

Our Channels:

NEWS

6 March 2020

video

Chicago00 featured on ABC 7 news Chicago

ABC, celebrating Chicago's 183rd birthday, makes special mention of the upcoming Chicago00: 1893 World's Columbian Exposition VR! https://abc7chicago.com/5984324/

15 November 2019

photo

The Great Chicago Fire Cyclorama

This 4' x 40' study was made from the original Great Chicago Fire Cyclorama, a 500' painting first displayed in 1892 at the Chicago cyclorama on Michigan Avenue between Monroe and Madison. Oil on canvas. Posted as part of the Chicago 00 Project with the Chicago History Museum. www.Chicago00.org

31 October 2019

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The Chicago 00 Project

Two views from our upcoming episode, Chicago00: The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, to be published in early 2020.

30 October 2019

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The Chicago 00 Project wins Chicago Innovation Award

Chicago00 awarded 2019 Chicago Innovation Award for Social Innovation!

https://chicagoinnovation.com/winners/chicago-history-museum/

22 September 2018

video

Chicago00: The St. Valentine's Day Massacre VR

Chicago00: The St. Valentine's Day Massacre VR experience, also available as an app for iPhone and Android, won a 2018 Muse Award for excellence from the American Alliance of Museums.

Photographs and documents from the Chicago History Museum's archive are brought to the site of the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre through virtual reality. The photos collected here, some well-known, some rare, tell this familiar Chicago story in a new and compelling way.

Featuring selections from the Chicago History Museum, Chicago Tribune Archive, John Binder Collection, and Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office, the narrated immersive, interactive experience puts the user in the shoes of the photographers who captured this infamous moment in Chicago history. The app version offers the ability to zoom-in to examine individual photos and learn more with extensive text captions.

www.Chicago00.org

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PROJECTS

1893: World's Columbian Exposition

The Chicago 00 Project is currently producing an augmented and virtual reality experience of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, to be released early 2020.

Chicago00: World's Columbian Exposition will focus on the site of the fair's Midway, where millions of our nation of immigrants came together to gawk at a pageant of luxury, entertainment and exoticism.

We will follow this path, from the White City (today, the site of Jackson Park), along the Midway Plaisance, and up onto the Ferris Wheel, while a narrator contextualizes the then-and-now of this third star on the Chicago flag.

Chicago00: Columbian Exposition is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

1968: The DNC Protests

Released on the 50th anniversary of the events, this episode reveals the history of Chicago's Grant Park on August 28th, 1968, when protestors violently clashed with police during the final night of the Democratic National Convention.

Chicago00: The 1968 DNC Protests is a virtual reality experience of Grant Park on August 28th, 1968 when protestors and police violently clashed. Now, 50 years later, audiences can see historical film and photos taken that day superimposed on new 3D virtual reality photos of the site, with narration by Dr. David Farber, author of "Chicago '68."

The 15 minute 3D VR tour with narration has to be viewed on Youtube or on Facebook 360. On iPhone use the YouTube app; on desktop the Chrome browser. 360 stills can be explored in Google Street View.

Videos	Panoramas

1933/34: A CENTURY OF PROGRESS

Chicago00: A Century of Progress is a virtual reality experience of Chicago's 1933 World’s Fair. Using historical photos taken from the fair's 628 foot Sky Ride and new drone photography, audiences are transported along the route of the Sky Ride cable cars high above the fair.

A unique tour of the fleeting and sensational city within a city that attracted nearly 50 million visitors to the shores of Lake Michigan in the midst of the Great Depression, the VR tour can be viewed in Youtube or with the free app which includes a gallery of more than 60 captioned photographs. 360 stills can be previewed in Google Streetview.

Videos	Apps	Panoramas

Learn more

1929: ST. VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE

The award winning VR experience, Chicago00: St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, brings photographs and documents from the Chicago History Museum's archive to the site of the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre through virtual reality. The photos collected here, some well-known, some rare, tell this familiar Chicago story in a new and compelling way.

Featuring selections from the Chicago History Museum, Chicago Tribune Archive, John Binder Collection, and Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office, the narrated immersive, interactive experiences work with or without a virtual reality viewer, and put the user in the shoes of the photographers who captured this infamous moment in Chicago history. The app offers the ability to zoom-in to examine individual photos and learn more with extensive text captions.

Videos	Apps	Panoramas

Learn more

1915: THE SS EASTLAND DISASTER

On July 24, 1915, the passenger ship SS Eastland capsized in the Chicago River between Clark and LaSalle streets: the single largest loss of life in Chicago history. Chicago00: The Eastland Disaster is an on-site augmented reality tour using over 70 historical photographs and newsreel films to tell the disaster.

The app, a free download for iPhone and Android, provides an AR tour specifically designed to be used along Chicago’s riverwalk, and a VR Gallery of images that can be viewed anywhere. Together they reveal the story of the disaster in a new and visceral way.

Apps	Panoramas

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THE MEDIASTREAM 150: SPACES

Created for display on the Media Stream 150— the largest screen in Chicago, spanning 3,000+ square feet in the lobby of the 150 North Riverside Tower— Chicago00: Spaces is a visualization of the Chicago History Museum’s archive of Hedrich Blessing photographs— thousands of images captured by the world-famous architectural photography firm between 1929 and 1979.

Five decades of Chicago architectural history are pulled apart and then stitched back together into ever-morphing composites of the city’s remarkable architectural legacy, forming a 20 minute UUHD video installation.

Videos	Panoramas

Learn more

ABOUT

CHICAGO ØØ came about through the meeting of two Chicagoans at a museum technologies conference in Korea. In 2013, John Russick, the Vice President for Interpretation and Education at the Chicago History Museum, and Geoffrey Alan Rhodes, filmmaker and Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, began an ongoing conversation about the promise of augmented and virtual reality for museums and archives. This conversation led to collaboration in a series of prototypes and demonstrations of app-based augmented reality history experiences, that have become an ongoing series of published projects available for free to the community.

The project is named after the corner of State and Madison Streets where the city’s street numbering begins, the site where the first Chicago00 demonstrations were held. For those first projects, a team scoured the Chicago History Museum’s extensive archive for images of the site throughout the past century, digitized images previously available only in print and negative, researched the exact location and perspective of the photographer when these images were captured, and matched them with current street corners and viewpoints to narrate the place from these historical documents; this became the process for every Chicago00 episode.

From the beginning Chicago00 has had three primary goals:

To activate archives by creating history experiences outside the museum walls,
To engage new communities by bringing those experiences to the places and communities where the stories occurred,
To experiment by seeking out synergies between new media technology and old media content and create historical experiences beyond documentary films and coffee table books.

All Chicago00 episodes are free to download and published through multiple platforms, including apps, videos, and Streetview panoramas. Multiple new projects are in development, focusing on sites and stories throughout the city, and exceptional media content from the archive. We are always seeking new partnerships and audiences.

Chicago00 is a partnership between the Chicago History Museum and Geoffrey Alan Rhodes.

Contact

Project Credits

CHICAGO ØØ

Conceived by
Geoffrey Alan Rhodes and John Russick

Designed by
Geoffrey Alan Rhodes

Major Funding
The National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Arts
The Princess Grace Foundation USA

Additional Support
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago00: 1968 DNC Protests (2019)

Narrated by
Dr. David Farber,
Roy A. Roberts Distinguished Professor, Modern America, University of Kansas
Author of, "Chicago ’68" (University of Chicago Press, 1988)

Historical Photographs
Chicago History Museum

Historical Audio
"American Revolution 2: Battle of Chicago (Part 1)"
(Chicago Film Group, 1969, 16mm., B&W, Sound)
&
"Urban Crisis and the New Militants: 'Social Confrontation: The Battle of Michigan Ave.'"
(Chicago Film Group, 1968, 16mm., B&W, Sound)
Courtesy of Chicago Film Archives.

Music
By E. Robert Velazco, from:
"The Distant Drummer: A Movable Scene,"
Arlie Pictures & The U.S. National Institute of Health (1970).
Courtesy of, The Prelinger Archives

Panoramic Photography & Compositing
Geoffrey Alan Rhodes

Lead Historical Researcher
Trevor Cunnien

Research Fellows
Charlotte Rosen
Alvita Akiboh

Project Intern
María Camila Palacio

Additional Support
Chabraja Center for Historical Studies
Studs Terkel Center for Oral History

Special Thanks to:
Julius Jones
Angela Morris
Timothy Paton Jr.
Maxine Frendel

Chicago00: A Century of Progress (2018)

Historical Photographs
Chicago History Museum

Music
"Shuffle Your Feet,"
Don Redman Orchestra with Harlan Lattimore
Brunswick Race Records, 1933.

Script
Geoffrey Alan Rhodes

Aerial Photography
AeroVista Innovations

Panoramic Photography & Compositing
Geoffrey Alan Rhodes
Te Bao

Archival Image Research
Trevor Cunnien

Special Thanks to:
Angela Hoover
Joseph Campbell
Julius Jones

Chicago00: St. Valentines Day Massacre (2017)

Historical Photographs & Documents
Chicago History Museum
Chicago Tribune Archive Photo/TNS
The John Binder Collection
Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office

Music
"Pharoah's army got drowned,"
(unknown performer)
Edison Diamond Disc, recorded July 9, 1924.

"Prelude in C sharp minor op. 3"
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Edison Diamond Disc, recorded March 12, 1920.

Text
Trevor Cunnien
Geoffrey Alan Rhodes
John Russick
Rosemary Adams

Panoramic Photography
Geoffrey Alan Rhodes
Xiaoting Che

Special Thanks to:
Angela Hoover
Joseph Campbell
John Binder

Chicago00: The Eastland Disaster (2016)

Graphic Design
Tifa Ting Zhou

UI/UX Design
Tifa Ting Zhou
Xiaoting Che

Text
Rosemary Adams
David Hale
Geoffrey Alan Rhodes
John Russick

Panoramic Photography
Geoffrey Alan Rhodes

Computer Science Research
Marco Cavallo and the Creative Coding Research Group,
University of Illinois-Chicago

Historical Photographs
Chicago History Museum

AR Framework
Kudan

Special Thanks to:
Randy Adamsick
Joseph Campbell
Angus Forbes
Angela Hoover
Paulina Ramirez
Magdalena Wistuba
Rodrigo Zuloaga

Project Interns:
Trevor Cunnien
Yi Luan
Ayesha Wadhawan
Lucy Wang
David Hale