(IN)TANGIBLE HERITAGE(S)
Abstract
Intangible heritage provides tangible heritage with context, making cultural sites meaningful and engaging. This creates challenges in developing 3D digital simulations of historic buildings. Audience expectations for virtual heritage continually increases as virtual reality systems become more widely used in gaming and entertainment. Merely presenting tangible heritage in the form of navigable VR building simulations no longer provides a novel experience to match the excitement and immersion expected by a technology-savvy audience, instead being perceived as sterile and lacking humanity and interest. Simple building walk-throughs, though informative of architecture itself, do not provide insight into how those spaces were inhabited, risking misleading the audience on the site’s purpose and everyday use. Buildings are created to be lived in, and it is often this lived experience that is lacking in virtual heritage. Adding an interplay of intangible heritage and tangible heritage to virtual reality simulations enriches the audience experience, creating a cultural bridge between the audience and the digital reconstruction, and between ‘then’ and ‘now’. This additional context reinvents the audience role from passive, disinterested observers to engaged participants with a meaningful role. This research explores the tangible/intangible heritage gap between audience expectations and VR simulations of architectural history. Two case studies are presented, the Virtual Pavilion and Triennale Virtuale, with audience feedback informing a do/be/feel motivational goal model to determine a hierarchy of tangible and intangible information desired by the audience in virtual heritage. The resulting framework provides recommendations of what elements researchers and designers can focus on to create a culturally rich virtual heritage learning experience.
Dr Alison de Kruiff is a lecturer and researcher in the School of Design and Architecture, Swinburne University of Technology. She has a PhD in Design Research with her thesis investigating the nexus of information design and experience design in Virtual Heritage—the 3D digitisation of cultural heritage sites and objects. Alison has 20 years of experience in web design and interaction design, teaching web design to undergraduate students and co-ordinating the UX Interaction Design major. Her research focuses on the role of affect in information processing in virtual reality experiences, with applications in diverse areas from assistive technology to virtual heritage.
Associate Professor Flavia Marcello is a world expert on the architecture and cultural production of the Italian Fascist period. She is a member of the Centre for Transformative Media Technologies and came to Swinburne in 2013 after a teaching at Deakin and Melbourne Universities and Temple University’s Rome Campus. While living and working in Rome she developed her expertise on the city and its 2000 + years of history, particularly in the architecture and urban planning of the Italian Fascist period. Her long-time interest in 1930s art and architecture was explored in her PhD (University of Sydney, 2003) and has continued to evolve throughout her academic career. Her areas of research include: exhibitions, architectural ephemera, spatial practice, the political uses of the Classical tradition, manifestations of fascist and anti-fascist ideology in monuments and public space. Most recently, she has been exploring the use of virtual reality as a method for architectural history. She teaches in the areas of design, history and theory with a focus on the inter-relationship between art and architecture, design and health. She also conducts action research in the role of design to improve health outcomes.
Professor Jeni Paay is an internationally leading researcher in Human Centred Computing. She has a transdisciplinary background spanning Architecture, Computer Science, and Human-Computer Interaction. Her research areas include: Design Methods; Interaction Design for Mobiles, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality; Digital Health; Interaction Design for Smart Spaces; Design for Digital Workspaces and User Experience Design. Jeni is currently Professor of Interaction Design at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, where she is also Director of the Centre for Design Innovation in the School of Design and Architecture, and Program Director in the Smart Cities Research Institute, leading the “Future Urban Living” program. Jeni’s is President of the SIGCHI ACM Melbourne chapter, and a Senior Member of the ACM. She has previously worked at the CSIRO, the University of Melbourne, the University of Tasmania, and Aalborg University (Denmark).