Copper Giloth, associate professor of art at the University of Massachusetts, has created an interactive 3-D animated artwork, called “Labyrinth of Fables,” which takes the user on a 17th century tour of the different fountains in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles in France.

Different fountains, each of which is decorated with an image of a fable, can be seen while exploring the maze of the gardens. When one is clicked on, it tells one of Aesop’s Fables.
After reading it, the user must then choose what the moral of the story is from three different options. The fountain comes to life and the gardens also slowly begin to grow when answered correctly.

Inspiration came to Giloth when she visited the gardens of the Palace of Versailles in 2010 and came across The Queen’s Grove, which, from 1665 to 1774, had a labyrinth filled with 39 fountains that each delineated one of Aesop’s Fables.

As a child, Giloth’s father would read her Aesop’s fables, which played a role in inspiring her to recreate the Labyrinth of Fables for others to experience.

Working on this project with minimal funding and help, Giloth learned about life in 17th century France, read historical documents in French and taught herself GPS-based software. While a few students worked on cataloging information and helped build images of the garden, Giloth’s main assistant, Jonathan Tanat, was hired in 2013 to help with design and programming through the Unity software.

Along with Unity, other programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, ARIS and Maya were used to build the program. IPhones and cameras were also used.

After four years of work on the project, the first version of the labyrinth was released on Apple’s app store and Google Play in July 2014.

Giloth said that it was not until the release of the mobile app that she felt she had gotten close to creating the experience one had in the 17th century.

Available for the iPhone, Android devices and Mac and Windows desktop versions, anyone can take a tour of the gardens and learn fables, in English or in French.

Giloth said she loved every minute of the project, and although some of her proposals for funding were rejected, that only made her try harder.

Giloth is also working on three other projects and plans to extend this project by making all the fountains and animals 3-D, and creating and immersive version of the app using a VR headset called the Oculus Rift.

Christina Yacono can be reached at [email protected].