Abby’s Dream Journey – Mary Anne funk

Abby holds her cell phone that shows her mother in Ethiopia during a facebook call.

Abby’s Dream Journey is an immersive story about the journey of a woman who lost her sight at the age of eight while playing with friends in the fields along the river’s edge, in the central Ethiopian city of Areka.

Spatial sounds of the river and sounds from our journey through Ethiopia will take you there as you hear her story and experience her dream memories. Participants will experience a 3D audio of a tea ceremony and moments spent documenting Abby’s story.

This is a two phase presentation. The first part of this presentation will be presented at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism in Portland, Oregon. A WebStory and immersive audio story will be shared by Mary Anne Funk during her Master’s in Multimedia Journalism terminal project. This is open to the public.

Abby stands, holding onto her cane, while posing at the end of her mother's driveway — Abby, in her lovely pink shirt, poses for me while standing at the end of her mother’s driveway next to the quiet countryside road. Cellphone photo by Mary Anne Funk

The second phase will begin in the Spring of 2020. Abby and Mary Anne will begin working on creating a traveling in person mixed media immersive 360 audio story and immersive sound journey with a tactile experience exhibit.

This entire experience is about creating a shared experience and is focused on accessibility.

Abby’s Dream Journey is an in person mixed media immersive 360 audio story and immersive sound journey with a tactile experience. Abby’s Dream Journey is about the journey of a woman who lost her sight at the age of eight while playing with friends in the fields along the river’s edge, in the central Ethiopian city of Areka. Spatial sounds of the river and sounds from our journey through Ethiopia will take you there as you hear her story and experience her dream memories. Visitors will experience a 3D audio of a tea ceremony and moments spent documenting Abby’s story.

This immersive 360 audio story, sound journey and tactile experience will have multiple listening stations. Each listening station will have large photo prints representing the sounds and immersive audio story that visitors will hear and each station will have smaller tactile images that are copies of the larger prints and brail stands that explain what each listening station is about before they listen to the audio.

This entire experience is about creating a shared experience and is focused on accessibility. This is an important step to developing immersive content that can be shared with people who are blind.