VIRTUAL: Prague Heritages

Abstract

Humanity has always represented its aspirations and motivations through art and design. Leading concerns of each era have made their way into the themes of these ‘virtual spaces’. These forms constitute a narrative of their times that reflect bigger issues of politics, culture, society and ecology. Ultimately, they supply a representation of heritage, providing insight to succeeding generations on the social hierarchies that have existed before. Historically, nationalistic agendas, religion, and utopian escapes have largely shaped the aesthetics of these representations, that used various mediums to immerse their viewers into these ideological spaces. However, the mediums themselves are also part of this active process of curation. Today we are faced with new and rapidly evolving technologies that provide a different medium from which to describe and experience our current moment and therefore redefine the way we collect and curate information. New digital technologies supply different ways of thinking about spatial relationships and the collection of data. They collect and curate digital objects that hold meaning in that they are a reflection of our collective heritage and culture. In many cases they become simulacrum of objects and architectures in reality but there are also examples of overlapping and evolving ones that reinterpret these objects and their meanings becoming something entirely different. These simulacrum and generative forms take on their own relevance, distinct from their ‘real’ counterparts. This paper will begin to dissect the relevance of the digital artifact and how we can understand heritage as an ever-evolving idea that is directly linked to its modes of representation.