Abstract
The concept of cultural heritage has evolved over time. In relation to a context where digital technologies and ICT are changing our everyday lives and the way to visualize, experience, and think, the growth of digital heritage poses new issues in the conceptual and operative relationship with real contents. The chapter reflects on the concept of tangible heritage, presents issues in heritage digitalization, and highlights the new relationships that the real dimension and the digital sphere of heritage establish, according to advanced frontiers of mixed heritage. Pressing topics are the matters of interpretation and presentation of heritage, the transparency of digital communication, and the participation of people in cultural content through digital content production, sharing, re-elaboration.
TopOn Tangible Heritage
A deep reflection on heritage conservation and protection moved from the rise of a critical consciousness of the past. At the beginning, it originated from the archaeological findings of XVIII century, and it has grown especially from the XIX century – let us remember the works of Viollet Le-Duc in France e John Ruskin in England –, with important consequences in the culture, documents and laws of different countries. Without retracing the well-known history of conservation and protection, it is useful to develop the discourse from the consideration made in the second half of the XX century.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Mixed Reality: In 1994 Milgram and Kishino coined the expression “Mixed Reality” (MR) to describe the “virtual continuum” between only real and completely virtual environment perception. Analyzing the interfaces for visualization, they identified six classes of hybrid states. Their aim is to define a taxonomy to distinguish between different technological requirements.
Augmented Reality: Superimposition of digital information on observer’s perceptions of reality. In VR external perceptions are limited as much as possible, in AR they are fundamental, because the computer-generated images roots on the vision of the real world.
Transparency: In computer-based visualization, it consists in the statement of sources and of the degree of reliability of the virtual re-constructions. From a methodological point of view, it makes the digital model testable by other professionals. In the built heritage field, the concept has been developed in archaeology where 3D models are realized to reconstruct ancient configurations. In The London Charter ’s Glossary (2009) AU73: The in-text citation "Glossary (2009)" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. , there is a definition of “Intellectual transparency”: It is “The provision of information, presented in any medium or format, to allow users to understand the nature and scope of “knowledge claim” made by a computer-based visualization outcome.”
Participatory Culture: It is “a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby experienced participants pass along knowledge to novices. In a participatory culture, members also believe their contributions matter and feel some degree of social connection with one another”. In particular, the following skills underlies the participative culture: Affiliation, Expression, Collaborative problem solving, Circulation. New skills follow: Play, Performance, Simulation, Appropriation, Multitasking, Distributed cognition, Collective intelligence, Judgment, Transmedia navigation, Networking, Negotiation” ( Jenkins, 2009 ).
Paradata: It can be generically referred to the process by which the survey data are collected. In particular, paradata is a kind of metadata focused on the use of data, and moreover it describes the transformation of data during their “inter-use” in participatory systems. According to the definition presented by The London Charter (2009) AU71: The in-text citation "London Charter (2009)" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. – focused on its use in 3D computer-based visualizations – paradata is: “Information about human processes of understanding and interpretation of data objects. Examples of paradata include descriptions stored within a structured dataset of how evidence was used to interpret an artefact, or a comment on methodological premises within a research publication. It is closely related, but somewhat different in emphasis, to “contextual metadata”, which tend to communicate interpretations of an artefact or collection, rather than the process through which one or more artefacts were processed or interpreted.”