Digit(al)isation in Museums: Civitas Project – AR, VR, Multisensorial and Multiuser Experiences at the Urbino's Ducal Palace

Introduction

Digit(al)isation of Cultural Heritage is here intended as the merging of two terms (Digitalisation and Digitization) with the aim to highlight the complexity of a multidimensional process that helps in the rescue of European Cultural Identity and increases awareness of values and memories. The differences between the two terms are better defined in the key terms section: the coinage in the title stresses the role of digital contents and virtual facsimiles, referring to digitization, as engine of digital innovation in museum life, that is the digitalization. Making sense of Europe’s Cultural Heritage (CH) means to shape the new reflective societies starting from Digital Cultural Heritage (DCH) and diffusing adaptive methods for conservation, fruition and social inclusion. The theme of CH fruition is strongly correlated to the way that information is transmitted and to different types of visitors. For these reasons, the paradigm of DCH is a valid instrument for social and cognitive inclusion of the people visiting the museum. In this context, museums should be more than just places where collections of artworks are preserved and exposed: they should witness identities and cultures. They make culture accessible to the mass audience. The CH collection, conservation and access in the original, accessible and attractive ways demand for digitizing museums and archaeological/historical sites, as well as for designing methodologies to represent, manage and exploit CH data at different levels, ranging from 3D/4D models to domain-specific (e.g., architectural, historical, etc.). The use of virtual “facsimile” of artworks, monuments and architectures can unify the scattered elements of them, allow public access to inaccessible places, allow the visitor to interact with perishable objects, promote the preservation of fragile sites and simulate damaged or lost objects. The availability of semantically reach data enables smart applications for fruition, preservation and study of DCH collections.

The development of digital tools and researches for museums has the potential both to collect and disseminate the CH in an effectively and low-cost mode and to implement a key strategy to interact with virtual “facsimile” in order to engage users, to increase capabilities thanks to the application of the “learning by interacting” paradigm, to diversify museum’s cultural proposals, etc. In the light of disseminating and validating new paradigms for the enjoyment and exploitation of Cultural Heritage (CH) artifacts, the present chapter shows main first results from CIVITAS (ChaIn for excellence of reflectiVe Societies to exploit dIgital culTural heritAge and museumS). The project, founded by Univpm as a strategic research project, is driven by the motivations to make significant progress in design methodologies and reference architectures about the remote sensing survey/processing/management and communication of architectural and cultural heritage objects. CIVITAS expects to give answers and significant advancements in the DCH domain, also introducing innovative approaches, for example having in mind unusual target groups, such as cognitively impaired people.

A longer life expectancy, especially in developed societies, has resulted in an increasing number of subjects with cognitive impairment. The reduction of cognitive performance can induce social isolation also through a decreased possibility to attend and use places of public interest, including the fruition of cultural heritages. On the other hand, the possibility of accessing and interacting with cultural areas for cognitively impaired subjects is considered a positive personal relationship modality and could result in considerable advantages from an economic and social point of view as well as from a health prospective. In this respect, cognitive stimulation and promotion of activities may represent an effective approach to contrast the negative evolution of cognitive impairment. However, the presence of reduced cognitive performances, particularly in some specific domains, requires facilities for a full access to areas of cultural interest. An improved offer, obtainable by adapting the use of artistic heritage in relation to the characteristics of the remaining cognitive abilities, could result in an increased number of potential users which may positively benefit from cultural heritage.

The project develops virtual/augmented environments, through the multisensorial interaction with virtual artworks, in order to satisfy needs and overcome limitations in a larger CH scenario, applying a bottom-up approach.

Moreover, a primary goal is to identify the best technological set-up to achieve a multisensory experience of the digital artifact, to increase the level of engagement and interest, to improve learning and finally push coming back to the museum.