“AFTER SERVING” is the comprehensive result of a two-year endeavor towards a finalized master’s project. This project, required of Syracuse University graduate students in the Multimedia, Photography, and Design in order to graduate, includes three key and mandatory components. To qualify as master’s project criteria, it must showcase the student’s best and new work and include three visual products: The primary visual form and two supplemental forms. “After Serving” presents the website itself as the key visual form and presents video stories and photogrammetry scanned objects as the two supplemental forms.

This project came into being after talking to a friend of mine about the high suicide rates of recently separated veterans. While issues of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and combat-related injuries are a part of the prevailing narratives of the veteran community, the personal upheaval of leaving the military is traumatic in itself. This is a space for military veterans to share their own stories about their transition, and points community members to resources that will aid in their journey to civilian life.

“AFTER SERVING” isn’t just about hearing other’s story though. It is a place of community, where those who have lost their place know they aren’t alone and maybe get help finding what they have been looking for. In staying with the feel of community, I felt it more belonging to create an interactive and immersive aspect to it. So, each video gives the viewer the opportunity to view it on a VR headset. For those who don’t wish to, or don’t have the ability, it can still simply be watched as is. On the subject’s page, you can find an additional object that you can interact with. It is a 3D scanned object that the subject held dear to them, helping them cope through their transition. For iPhone users, one can also interact with the object in Augmented Reality!