With “4-D News”, Cream on Chrome developed an interactive installation that puts recent media spectacles in a broader context. Through its bespoke interfaces, news consumers become news explorers.

Short-lived updates that present themselves as breaking news every day, flood the media landscape, one headline covering up another instead of contributing to broadening the discourse. 

Can we broaden the context in which we read the news by juxtaposing recent events with similar historic references?

Central to the design of “4-D News” is the seamless and intuitive interaction with time. Inspired by cubism, where multiple sides of an object were seen simultaneously, the dynamic interface of “4-D News” allows it to deal with past and presence on the same canvas.

Within the installation, visitors use objects to trigger events virtually, e.g. by moving an arrow to physically scroll through the news timeline. Through these elements, “4-D News” makes the context around news stories perceivable not only on a rational, but also on an intuitive level, putting emphasis on the tacit information between the many interlinked articles (from Süddeutsche Zeitung, NRC Handelsblad, De Telegraaf and De Volkskrant).

Navigating the timeline reveals how quickly the style of reporting and the meanings of events have changed in only a few years.

Part 1

The first part thematically revolves around former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s famous phrase “Wir schaffen das” (“We can do this”, 2015), referring to the challenges of helping Syrian refugees stranded at the Hungarian border. This sentence soon became a touchstone for migration politics in German media. Over the course of the following four years, the perceived meaning of this sentence changed in subject (‘we’ as German society, EU, the economy), verb (‘can do’: grant asylum, integrate in labour market) and object (‘this’: refugees, legal migrants).

When physically ‘scrolling’ through the years (2015 to 2019), images and texts seamlessly glide in and out, words replace each other, and highlights shift in colour. This interaction treats the story as a continuous matter, rather than single snapshots of time. And yet it allows us to juxtapose and compare the content and tone of 28 news articles the research is based upon. All articles were published by the Süddeutsche Zeitung and either directly mention Merkel’s phrase or key events in the development of German migration policy.

The work was developed in frequent exchange with practitioners, educators and students in journalism. In 2020, Cream on Chrome was invited for a 3-month research residency at Fontys School of Journalism to present the results of the installation and give a tutorial on the research method for aspiring journalists.

“4-D News” was shown at Z33 Huis voor Actuele Kunst, Design & Architectuur (BE), to Dutch Design Week (NL) to Museum of Architecture and Design (SLO), and at MKG Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (DE) forming an augmented, spatial experience in every venue. Like this the discussion reached a diverse public audience of approximately 60.000 people in total. 

Together with Fontys School of Journalism & the readership, “4-D News” was further developed in the form of a smart archive navigation tool called “Newsslider”. “Newsslider” is a research tool for journalists and researchers that takes the principles of “4-D News” and positions them in a more applied, web-based context.