Research into inclusive and interactive cultural heritage is growing. Researchers from the Smart Societies coalition are talking to potential new project partners in the heritage sector and a team that spans communication science, computer science and expertise in colonial heritage is embarking on a new sub-project on Polyvocality and Virtual Reality (VR). Can you broaden your perspective with both? The research is part of the project Interactive Inclusive Heritage within the Smart Areas focus area.
Poly (multiple) vocality (voices) refers to the idea that there are several narratives attached to museum objects with colonial history. That is because they often changed hands from those who created them, to those who first used them, who peacefully or violently acquired, sold, re-sold, and finally presented them to curious museum visitors. So, people may look at the same object, but realize that it meant different things to different people or even changed its appearance. And can VR help visitors experience multiple ‘layers of truth’? Could a more faceted representation of museum objects help visitors reflect on colonial history and its impact in a different way?
Cultural AI Lab
Polyvocality was also a topic at the Cultural AI Lab event in Utrecht on 22 September. The lab’s mission has significant overlap with the VU Amsterdam-UT project and is focused on how artificial intelligence can benefit humanities research and vice versa. The presentation in Utrecht on inclusive, interactive heritage sparked interesting conversations and ideas for future collaboration with other researchers and people in the cultural heritage sector.
Expert Meeting
Research is especially useful when its findings can be applied in practice. After the creation of a virtual, interactive exhibition with its own smart museum guide, the researchers now want to know what’s good, what’s bad and what’s missing if it should be used by cultural heritage institutions or in further research. They’ll do that by setting up an expert meeting. The story continues.
Interested in staying up to date or participating ? Please visit www.iiheritage.wordpress.com or contact Claudia Libbi, c.a.libbi@vu.nl or Shenghui Wang, shenghui.wang@utwente.nl.
