Sara Oslislo

Presentation of the game app "Border Zone" which allows visitors to discover the eventful history of the Babelsberg Park on their own. The virtual connection of past and present through the latest mixed reality technology makes it possible to experience lost or hidden traces of contemporary history. The development of the location-based digital game is a cooperation project between the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation and the Cologne Game Lab that will run until the end of 2021. Using a smartphone or tablet, players explore the effects of the German-German division and the border fortifications on Park Babelsberg on the basis of eyewitness accounts. Short, interactive missions confront them with historical events or personal fates in the former border area. The players learn about important periods in the park's history - from the development of the garden by Peter Joseph Lenné and Prince Pückler to the border period, reunification and the present. With this free Park Game, the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation would like to promote multi-perspective knowledge transfer, enable participation and invite discourse on how to deal with world cultural heritage. An accompanying research program will explore how games can be used sustainably and meaningfully as a new medium of communication in public park spaces.