We’ve all heard about the blackouts, the air raids, the rationing…but can we really imagine what life was like for an average Londoner during WWII? Welcome to Network’43 – 4 Londoners tweet live from 1943. They share their daily lives just as we do today, through tweets, pictures, videos, news links. The project ran live on Twitter and the website for 3 weeks until Remembrance Day – 11/11/11. It was based on real people and real events. It accurately recreated the 3 weeks in 1943, using bombing records, diaries, archival material, old newspapers and interviews. This is a not-for-profit project, produced out of a personal passion for the subject. Its aim was to promote Remembrance Day awareness and ensure the millions of men, women and children who fought on the Homefront are not forgotten. It was supported by resource contribution from London Fire Brigade Museum, Greenwich Heritage Centre, Imperial War Museum and various personal photographs and collections. Very few people of ‘the greatest generation’ are still amongst us. So today’s generation have little opportunity to hear their stories first hand. What they see in textbooks and films are hard to connect with in today’s immersive, hyper real environment. Network’43 put two generations on the same platform. It showed history through the eyes of the people living it, thereby creating a much more empathetic view of it. The four Londoners shared their everyday lives moment-by-moment - from major incidents to daily nuances. The project comes in a significant year when Twitter has really come of age. From the UK riot clean up to the Arab spring, Twitter has truly become ‘the voice from the ground’. What if the generation then had the same power of communication as we do today? We reimagined one of the biggest world events through retrospective tweets. The brevity of the medium ensured effective and instant communication. Most people don’t have the time and interest to go through fat history books or long diaries, this campaign told their stories in a form people could absorb easily. Always showing a human account of the times, rather than a factual one. The 1943 tweets sat in between people's regular tweet feed, highlighting the contrast between the times and thus emphasising the hardship, sacrifice and spirit of that generation. Over 7000 people from 77 countries followed it on the website and Twitter. Schools around the world used it as a teaching aid. It received support and accolade from the Department of Education. It is set to be a part of Govt. white paper on digital media and education. This can inspire a new way of teaching history to the young and digital savvy generation. We wish to use this to create a learning tool for classrooms of the future. http://media.network43.com/video.html
http://network43.com/
