1. Blender
2. Polycam3. Sketchfab
4. Spatial Media Metadata Injector
5. Renderdoc
London
Westminster Abbey
MA Degree Project (ongoing)
Westminster Abbey
MA Degree Project (ongoing)
The Queen’s funeral:
a national grief or a
distraction?
The 3D News Network is a digitally based project aimed to alter the everyday perspective to the general news we are offered. The project was inspired from a collection of objects found in 3D scanning applications (Polycam), particularly in the multi-dimensional archiving of Ukrainian war debris such as bomb craters, bullet hole ridden vehicles, destroyed Russian tanks and many more testifying to the horror of the war. The visceral nature of 3D scanning as a form of real-time news reporting has transformed the way individuals experience and document pertinent issues surrounding contemporary life. 3D News Network is thus a direct response to this mass media revolution, performing as a collection of news headlines throughout 2022 centred around the funeral of Queen Elizabeth in September 2022. Being a foreigner living under the influence of British news and media throughout my past 4 years in London, the scale of news coverage of the funeral was both inevitable and fiercely publicised on both social media and traditional media platforms worldwide. In light of the devastating political conflicts occuring around the world during that same time, the scale of media coverage focused on the Queen’s death felt somewhat disproportionate and heavily dissociated from the socio-political chaos of the world.
How much attention did it draw?
An alleged 4 billion viewers globally, although no source can confirm, which would be a record, BBC claimed 5.1 billion viewers watched the event before they quickly deleted the facebook post
More than 50 UK News Channels
2,000 guests including representatives from 168 countries, 18 monarchs, 55 presidents and 25 prime ministers, making it one of the largest gatherings of world leaders in history.
Sky News sent 40 camera crews, fielded 275 cameras and deployed a helicopter.
BBC fielded 213 cameras, plus remote cameras inside the Abbey and St George’s, and used 14 outside broadcast trucks, transmitting from 10 locations and in 6 different languages.
And yet attracted less viewers than the 2020 Euro Finals in the UK.
During the Queen’s Elizabeth funeral:
Russia committed 100 attacks on Ukrainian civilians
Russia committed 101 air or drone strikes on Ukraine
A 148 armed clashes between both armies took place
A mass grave of 440 bodies was discovered in Izium
Russian forces launched eight cruise missiles at the dam of the Karachunivske reservoir causing extensive flooding in Kryvyi Rih and a 2.5 metres (8 ft) increase of water level in the Inhulets River.
The United States announced a $600 million aid package for Ukraine, including additional HIMARS ammunition, "tens of thousands" of 105 mm artillery rounds, one thousand 155 mm rounds, counter-drone systems, winter gear, and night vision devices.
BM-21 missiles and heavy artillery shelled Nikopol, injuring 1 and damaging 11 high-rise buildings, a kindergarten, a school, gas furnaces, and power lines.
Two people were killed after a rocket attack by Russian forces on residential buildings in the town of Chuhuiv.
Rocket strike near the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant
How much did the funeral cost?
An estimated 162 million £, almost 20 times more than the second most expensive state funeral
The Al Janoub Stadium costed an estimated 448 million £
With the extra bank holidays and the 10 days of mourning, the British economy saw its GDP decline by 0.6%, an estimated 13 billion £.
Qatar invested an estimated 172 billion £ into the world cup.
200 flights were grounded, 200 extra trains were added on the tube, the Westminster area sealed off, causing major disruption on buses, cycling and even walking
Process:
This whole project started because of my research into the Queen’s funeral death and how ambiguous sources are and how the media covered this event. In fact, most of the news related to the event regard prior speculations to the event. A lot of articles published during or after the one week are all very much based on the same concrete data such as the number of viewers in the UK or the amount of officials that came to pay their homage. But a lot of different numbers have been twisted or very broad estimates without concrete fact checking. One of the main facts that was distorted and still appeared on a BBC facebook post is the alleged 4.1 billion global viewers. They deleted the post as soon as it was published as viewers very quickly asked for the credibility and the source of this information. According to this Full Fact article, there is no evidence or research made on the total number of viewers worldwide and that number was an estimate made prior to the event from a radio host. Even if this number is not used now in any News Broadcast, they still left all their articles on the estimation of people that were going to watch it creating this illusion now that it was the case.
Another fact that cannot be confirmed other than trust is the famous queue to see the Queen. The number proposed is that an alleged 250000 people queued to see Queen Elizabeth lying in state. However, every single news article on that number quotes Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan, who says that when this was stated, they were still “crunching the numbers”. Official documents were meant to be released the week after but I could not find them anywhere.
One of the most polarising events was a very important question: how do Brits now feel about the monarchy?
According to The Guardian:
YouGov:
CNN:
National Center for Social Research:
CBS:
UK in Changing Europe:
GP News:
Statista:
Momentive:
Even if the numbers themselves can be quite similar from pole to pole, or even use the same poll, it is the difference in interpretation that is very drastic. Some call it the end of the monarchy, some call it the Golden Age. Even if the true answer might be extremely complex or not even exist, the point is how the Queen’s funeral created extremely polarising opinions where everyone is trying to reinterpret this deep, emotional and cultural event.
For the making of this project I used a multitude of softwares, open source archives and techniques for each world. To import the Google Earth, I used an app called Renderdoc which scans a certain area which contains 3d information. I then worked on Blender for the remainder of the project.
For the news coverage world, I went on youtube, big media corporations websites such as BBC, and scrolled through thousands of images on Google Image in order to find any footage covering the Queen’s arrival and departure at Westminster Abbey. In the end, the reporters were all allocated in one place which does not give great variety but I could find rare shots from the sides and from helicopters later on. I then projected as many images as possible onto the map to give a sense of density and evoque the heaviness of the media coverage on the event. I matched every image onto the Google Earth file respecting the angle, lens size, distance and physical references such as buildings, trees…
Example of footage:
For the war in Ukraine in Westminster, I amassed as much 3D documentation as possible. The main software I used was an open source 3d scanning software called Polycam. Since the start of the war, Polycam collaborated with: The Danish National Committee of Unesco, Blue Shield Denmark, Polycam and Vice Media Group in close collaboration with Ukraine’s Heritage Emergency Rescue Initiative and the National Museum of the History of Ukraine. This huge project is made to conserve Ukraine cultural heritage and to testify for the atrocities of the war. This form of documentation was new to me and what struck me was the immersive dimension of the data. Now not only can we see what happened but we can go around it, analysing every inch of the scanned element. I also downloaded scans from Sketchfab which is an open source website for any kind of 3d models. On the platform however, a lot of large architectural agencies are working with footage made from drones and then creating the models through photogrammetry. They also are sharing them for free as they are also involved in the cultural preservation of Ukraine heritage. These more precise and developed models were a great addition to the project as it is much harder to scan buildings, especially demolished ones, on Polycam. In order to create contrast with the 10 days of national mourning and what happened in that period in Ukraine, I decided to incorporate the scanned elements into the Google Earth file. I wanted to showcase the media attention brought to a royal funeral compared to a mass grave in Ukraine that was discovered in that week which led to first evidence of war crime and crime against humanity committed by Russians.
Example of model:
For the last one, I managed to find a free model of a Qatar stadium on Sketchfab and used that as the main reference. What I did for this world was to scale up the Al Wakrah Stadium proportionally to how much the world cup cost compared to the Queen’s funeral. What I wanted to showcase here was this similar formula of the more money is put into media during a global event, the more prone the general audience is to like, agree and forget certain aspects of breaking news.
Model used: