How a video game helped the British Library bring lost history to life
From a Disney comic book starring Scrooge McDuck to a never-ending reel of scenes from India’s most expensive TV series, the British Library’s latest exhibition is eclectic to say the least.
Billed as a tribute to Alexander the Great’s legacy, this is as much an exhibition about storytelling as it is one man, culminating in a display of how technology can bring such legends to life.
Born in Macedon in 356BC, in reality Alexander travelled so far as northwest India, his vast empire from Greece to Egypt recorded here across paintings, tablets, and scriptures that would look right at home in any of the world’s greatest museums.
His legend, though, knew no such geographical limits. Whether the son of a serpent magician (Nectanebo, not Voldemort), or a brave warrior who stared down a mighty dragon, George-style, mythical stories starring Alexander began during his lifetime and have survived throughout the years since.
Bringing such adventures together is the Ebstorf map. First made in Germany around 1300, it was the largest world map in existence from the Middle Ages until it was destroyed during the Second World War.
It boasted more than 2,000 entries across more than 30 parchment sheets, hundreds of which were illustrated, including more than a dozen explicitly related to Alexander – including some of his fictional escapades.
A reproduction of the lost map on display at the library. Pic: Kloster Ebstorf/British Library
A new interactive version has been created for the library by students from visual effects school Escape Studios, the producer of young talent which has worked on films including Star Wars and games like Assassin’s Creed.
Displayed akin to an opening credits sequence from Game Of Thrones, it presents landmarks and milestones from Alexander’s real and imagined lives, just as the original map did, but now in 3D.
“A mix of real places, physical locations, and sheer fantasy,” is how Yrja Thorsdottir, the library’s digital content exhibition curator, describes it.
She tells Sky News that the new map is a case of how technology is allowing curators to “bring lost things to life”.
The digital version of the map is fully interactive. Pics: British Library
‘Technology allows us to bring lost history back’
Perhaps the most striking example of that is saved for last.
Upon his death aged 32, the likely cause of which continues to divide historians, Alexander’s body was transported from Babylon to Egypt and placed inside a long-lost mausoleum at Alexandria.
The exhibition – unafraid to jump from ancient manuscripts to films and even anime – culminates with a detailed reconstruction of the tomb from the video game Assassin’s Creed Origins, scaled up and projected on to the walls.
“We’ve lost the tomb, we’ve lost the map, technology allows us to sort of bring them back,” says Ms Thorsdottir.
Assassin’s Creed has made its recreations of history’s great cities something of a calling card since it debuted, way back in what now feels positively ancient 2007.
From Constantinople to Athens, each choice has required a world larger in scope – yet still greater in detail – than any that came before.
“Our colleagues who made the first Assassin’s Creed (set in the Holy Land during the Crusades) did an excellent job and paved the way for what it has become,” Thierry Noel, in-house historian at developer Ubisoft, tells Sky News.
“But as it became such a well known franchise, it became obvious there would be more and more need to recreate bigger worlds, to be more accurate, to find more information, and that’s why the team I lead was born.”
Greek puppets depicting Alexander fighting a dragon. Pic: British Library
Alexander depicted on an Ethiopian scroll. Pic: British Library
‘It’s about creating an experience’
Origins, released in 2017 and set in Egypt from 49 to 43BC, was the first entry to benefit from Mr Noel’s team, who scour museums, libraries and historical locations around the world to bring them to life digitally.
“We used everything we had to imagine how the tomb could have been,” he says.
Such research is what led to the collaboration with the library, as his team took inspiration from a prior exhibition of Anglo-Saxon art during development of 2020’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, set in England during the time of Vikings.
For some players, such locales may only ever act as a sandbox within which to carry out brutal murder. The idea of such a game being leveraged at an institution like the British Library may sound to some – like many of the stories passed on about Alexander – like fantasy.
But to those behind this exhibition, they present opportunities for storytelling that are here to stay.
“It’s about engaging people in different ways,” says Adrian Edwards, head of printed collections.
“An element of an exhibition like this is theatre, it’s about creating an experience.
“The level of detail they invest in now to visualise these places from history, it gives you a real sense of what it might have been like.”
Alexander the Great: The Making Of A Myth is open at the British Library until 19 February 2023.
Entertainment
Creatives having to be even more creative as National Theatre overhauls how it stages productions
The National Theatre is overhauling how it stages productions – as its ambitious climate targets mean creatives are having to be even more creative.
After setting itself the goal of achieving net zero as an organisation by 2030, off-stage quietly radical changes are under way.
Pic: Reed Watts
Sky News was invited to see how the theatre, based in Southbank, central London, has gone about overhauling its approach to staging productions, meeting with some of those who’ve worked on its adaptation of the much-loved children’s classic Ballet Shoes.
While critics have been full of praise for the visual spectacle on-stage, how the whole look was created required a fundamental shift in approach.
“All of the team have had to be on board with reinventing, recutting and reimagining items rather than just making them from scratch,” costume designer Samuel Wyer said.
A new resource they had to work with was the National Theatre Green Store in Bermondsey, southeast London.
The warehouse has more than 131,000 items of costume and almost 22,000 props now housed under one roof so that designers can repurpose items from previous productions to try to cut their carbon footprint.
It’s a surprisingly satisfying challenge.
Mr Wyer said they were able to “dip and cut clothes… which meant I was finding things even outside my imagination that were more perfect than I could have drawn on a piece of paper”.
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Trying to lead by example, the theatre hopes to demonstrate how the industry needn’t take a fast fashion approach to making sets, props and costumes from scratch.
“I think if it’s demonstrated that we can do things in this way that helps all of us imagine a world where we can use what we’ve got rather than new, new, new, because we need that balance,” Mr Wyer said.
“Theatre is where we come to imagine who we could be.”
Pic: Reed Watts
‘Every piece has its own little quirks’
Last year, the National set itself targets of 50% of the materials used in its productions having had a previous life, and 65% being repurposed at the end of each production.
For set designer Frankie Bradshaw, hitting those targets has meant working with a lot more repurposed furniture.
“Lots of second-hand cabinets, bookshelves,” she said. “Ordinarily [carpenters] would have been used to building from scratch following a drawing and this has been quite different.
“Every piece has its own little quirks, and they’ve had to adapt their processes to fit that way of working.”
While it’s by no means straightforward, the process is proving rewarding.
“It requires everyone to be a little bit more flexible, a little more patient, but it does mean you can end up with a product you’re a lot more proud of,” Ms Bradshaw added.
Ballet Shoes runs at the National Theatre until Saturday 22 February.
Neil Young has been confirmed as a headliner at this year’s Glastonbury – despite saying he was dropping out due to the BBC’s involvement in the festival.
The 79-year-old Canadian musician wrote on his website earlier this week that both he and his band, The Chrome Hearts, were pulling out because the BBC’s involvement was a “corporate turn-off”.
He has now said in a statement that this decision was down to “an error in the information I received”.
Emily Eavis, the organiser of the Glastonbury Festival, posted on Instagram on Friday: “Neil Young is an artist who’s very close to our hearts at Glastonbury.
“He does things his own way and that’s why we love him.
“We can’t wait to welcome him back here to headline the Pyramid in June.”
Glastonbury, which takes place at Worthy Farm in Somerset in the summer, has worked closely with the BBC – its exclusive broadcast partner – since 1997.
Posting on Neil Young Archives, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer wrote in his initial statement: “The Chrome Hearts and I were looking forward to playing Glastonbury, one of my all-time favourite outdoor gigs.
“We were told that BBC was now a partner in Glastonbury and wanted us to do a lot of things in a way we were not interested in.
“It seems Glastonbury is now under corporate control and is not the way I remember it being.”
Young performing at Glastonbury in 2009. Pic: AP
Young, who headlined the festival’s Pyramid stage in 2009, added: “We will not be playing Glastonbury on this tour because it is a corporate turn-off, and not for me like it used to be.
“Hope to see you at one of the other venues on the tour.”
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In an updated statement, he wrote: “Due to an error in the information received, I had decided to not play the Glastonbury festival, which I always have loved.
“Happily, the festival is now back on our itinerary and we look forward to playing! Hope to see you there!”
Young, who is married to US actress Daryl Hannah, was booked to play Glastonbury in 1997 but pulled out after cutting his left index finger while making a ham sandwich.
Glastonbury, one of the UK’s largest music festivals, is set to take place between 25 and 29 June, with Sir Rod Stewart booked for the Sunday teatime legend slot.
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