Multimedia guides to Polish culture by Culture.pl

24/06/2016

BM PRESS RELEASE ‒ CULTURE.PL RELEASES MULTIMEDIA GUIDES TO POLISH CULTURE
A new interactive platform developed by Culture.pl allows users to discover contemporary Polish culture by exploring three of its most promising fields: photography, electronic music and cinema.

The multimedia guides contain hundreds of photographs, film clips and soundbites donated by national archives and contemporary artists. They were designed to give foreigners a privileged insight into Polish culture through rare and valuable materials mostly unobtainable online.

The three-part series is a special release from Culture.pl, a state-run web portal with extensive English-language resources about Polish culture. The guides were created by Culture.pl’s editorial team and BrightMedia, a Polish creative agency whose previous release ‒ an interactive web documentary about the Warsaw uprising ‒ received a Webby award in 2015.

‘We wanted to present classical articles in a more engaging and eye-catching form’, says Łukasz Górka, technical director with BrightMedia. ‘We believe that the refined visual presentation and high interactivity will reach new audiences and boost interest in Polish culture. The guides were developed so that users could explore not only the topic at hand but also its socio-cultural context. In addition to the dynamic visual layers, the technology behind the mini-sites is also quite sophisticated. The enriched animated content and interactive elements were built with WebGL.’

The mini-sites are presented as a single hub, but each tells a different story.

A Foreigner’s Guide to Polish Cinema kicks off with an extravagant animated infographic featuring Poland’s impressive collection of film awards, thus inviting users to learn more about old favourites like Wajda, Kieślowski or Polański. Then the narrative branches out into insider stories, like Martin Scorsese’s passion for Polish cinema, or Agnieszka Holland’s contribution to the HBO series House of Cards.

A Foreigner’s Guide to Photography takes us back in time to the very beginnings of photography in Poland, when a determined inventor came up with a way to immortalise his hot air balloon rides. Through priceless archival photographs, Poland’s colourful history unfurls, seen through the eyes of trailblazing photo-reporters and visual artists.

A Foreigner’s Guide to Electronic Music begins with one of the darkest moments in recent Polish history: the transition to capitalism. Users are shown how, against all odds, this difficult transformation gave birth to one of the most exciting music scenes in Europe.

‘These guides harness the storytelling power of technology paired with art,’ says Lea Berriault, managing English editor at Culture.pl. ‘We hope they will go a long way in popularising Polish culture abroad. Their strongest asset is that they feature truly world-class artists who have yet to be discovered outside of Poland.’

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