Time travel to contain flooding? Sounds like a storyline from a new science fiction series, but for Antwerp University it's just everyday stuff. In fact, researchers at the university look to the past to distill insights they can apply in the future. Think of flood prevention or mapping changing fauna & flora in certain areas. To make this research clear to college students, Wunderman Thompson Benelux devised an appropriate activation: famous ancient paintings were brought to life that explain the research to you in person.
UAntwerpen has been working with several European countries for several years on a teletime machine. Not as in Suske en Wiske, but in the form of a digital environment in which ancient data are merged into an infinitely expandable 4D environment. That data consists of ancient maps, archaeological finds, archived texts and also paintings. One of the areas they are investigating is around the Kleine Nete, for which they are going back in time 400 years to study the evolution of the Scheldt. This will help them better assess how to map flood plains in the future to prevent flooding.
