Rune stones were used by ancient Vikings to make announcements and preserve history. Cave art and petroglyphs documented early human history. Brighton High School receives a gift from an alumnus that preserves Brighton history in a high-tech fashion.

Dane Christensen, a 2008 Brighton alumnus and Stanford MFA documentarian, created a digital link to Brighton’s 55-year athletic, academic and arts history. “I wanted to build a strong connection between the legacy of the original circular school and the state-of-the-art new Brighton High,” said Christensen during a brief visit to the school site in December. “This digital portal to Brighton’s history can serve as a link for current and future students to the generations that went before them.”

New technologies to preserve historical sites

Christensen created an augmented reality (AR) experience that is accessible onsite at Brighton. AR is an emerging technology that allows the viewer to view/experience a site as it was. 

“Using 3D mapping, semantic segmenting, GPS and features common to most smart phones, I created a time machine that enables the viewer to step back and experience Brighton as it was before the deconstruction of the circular school, during the rebuild and into the new building. The physical changeover is a key link for the Brighton community to celebrate the continuity of the school,” Christensen said.  

The AR experience is not unlike what archaeologists in Athens or Israel have undertaken to allow viewers to step back in a virtual time machine and see ancient structures as they were. The Brighton AR experience gives alumni the opportunity to walk the concentric circles of Brighton High as they were from 1969-2021. The AR experience captures unique features of Brighton such as running out of the gym tunnel onto the football field with the football players. It captures a wrestling workout in the old wrestling room, a musical being performed in the old auditorium and an American Problems class discussion. 

Five-years in the making

This ambitious project began five years ago, spurred by a call to the Canyons District Board and Superintendent James Briscoe to digitally preserve both Brighton and Hillcrest High before their demolition and rebuild. Canyons District CFO Leon Wilcox contracted with Christensen to digitally document the old buildings, the destruction, the rebuild process and the completed new schools. 

“For the first time, we had technologies that allowed a detailed preservation of how the former building looked and functioned with students and teachers,” Wilcox said. “It would have been wonderful to have similar digital memories of the old Jordan High building, but the technologies used in the Brighton preservation didn’t exist back then.”  

The 360-degree virtual reality (VR) capture of old Brighton is fairly comprehensive and serves as a basis for the AR adaptation that Christensen gifted to the Legacy Committee of the school.  Not to be overshadowed, the portal also links to a wealth of 2D resources that document the unmatched sports accomplishments of Brighton’s alumni as well as the rich academic offerings and traditions at Brighton.

Unrelated to the Brighton historic project was a recent Cottonwood Heights Arts Council project to wrap mechanical/utility boxes along Bengal Boulevard with art from local artists. 

Arts Council Chair Laura Garcia said, “Wrapping the utility boxes on Bengal Boulevard turned out to have a bigger impact on our community than the Arts Council expected. We were confident that adding beautiful and unique art would be appreciated and well received, but because Bengal Boulevard features our beautiful new high school, we were able to implement some historically significant pieces from Brighton.” 

The art wrap project became a perfect platform for Christensen’s AR project. He created art work for the utility box on the Brighton roundabout (Bengal Boulevard) that depicts old Brighton in its former glory nestled against the Wasatch mountains. Drawing inspiration from the Vikings method of preserving history, he made that art wrap into a “rune portal” that launches viewers into the AR experience through a QR code on the art.  

“The impact is emotional and very special to many students and alumni,” Garcia said.

The result is a museum-quality experience for the community. The Cottonwood Heights Historic Committee has created a series of neighborhood hikes that highlight historical sites in the community. This “rune portal” adds another historical marker to those tours. 

Jim Kichas, Historic Committee chair said, "This project adds to the history and culture that we work to preserve all around Cottonwood Heights.”   

Krista Cullimore (Brighton class of 1985 and Brighton alumni chair) sees the sought after link between former students, current students and future students. “The installation is truly a time machine. It’s such a fun way to preserve Brighton’s rich legacy and share it with future generations. Thank you, Dane, for such a great gift to our alumni and our community.”  

The AR experience is geolocked to the art wrap on the Brighton roundabout at 2300 East and Bengal Boulevard and can be accessed at any time from any smart phone. λ