Performing Cultural Heritage

in the Digital Present

Conference 2023
10-13 September 2023
Università di Torino

BOOK OF
ABSTRACTS
 Funded by

Dipartimento di
Studi Umanistici CIRMA

In collaboration with

With the Patronage of

 Performing Cultural Heritage in the Digital Present - DRHA Conference 2023 | BOOK OF ABSTRACTS

Performing Cultural Heritage in the Digital Present

DRHA Conference 2023

Book of Abstracts

Edited by

Letizia Gioia Monda

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 Performing Cultural Heritage in the Digital Present - DRHA Conference 2023 | BOOK OF ABSTRACTS

About DRHA Conference 2023

DRHA (the 27th Annual Conference for Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts) brings
together artists, scholars, educators, curators, digital researchers, and entrepreneurs
interested in the ways digital technologies intersect with the arts and humanities. The 2023
conference celebrates the interplay between notions of intangible and tangible heritage,
investigating how digital strategies can be used to widen participation, facilitate inclusivity, and
promote a wider range of ways of appreciating and understanding the intersections between
our tangible and intangible heritage.

Cultural heritage plays a key role in shaping societies, identities, nations, and it has a strong
relevance as an asset in the economies of many countries (not only in highly developed
economies). It is important that individuals, communities and institutions develop a strong
engagement with their cultural heritage, both in terms of social awareness and economical
exploitation. That means researchers in cultural heritage must enter in a dialogue with notions
such as citizenship, social cohesion, political engagement, accessibility as well as with the
powers that govern and influence society such as political authorities, economic players,
industries, and media providers.

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DRHA EXHIBITION - RETTORATO: 10/9 (6:00-7:30 p.m.); 11-12-13/9 (1:00-3.00 p.m.)

Sunday 10 September 2023

(RETTORATO)

OPENING
(5.30-7.30 P.M.)

DRHA Exhibition

Curated by Federica Patti and organized in collaboration with UniVerso,

the permanent observatory on contemporaneity of the Università di Torino.

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DRHA EXHIBITION - RETTORATO: 10/9 (6:00-7:30 p.m.); 11-12-13/9 (1:00-3.00 p.m.)

SPECIAL EVENT
(CLAB)

Factory 42 presents UnEarthed: The Beetle Story

UnEarthed: The Beetle Story is created by Factory 42 in conjunction with Meta Immersive
Learning. Designed to inspire people to respect, protect and restore the planet, The Beetle Story
is one sequence of a multi-story adventure, set across the Amazon and the Tongass National
Forest. The player is a new research assistant, following ‘The Professor’ - the world’s leading
biodiversity expert - to gather research and learn about biodiversity. The Professor is played
by Indira Varma (HBO’s Game of Thrones, Disney +’s ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’), and guiding
throughout is the Ecobot, Hazzi, a droid created by the Professor, voiced by Richard Ayoade
(Pixar’s ‘Soul’, Disney +’s ‘The Mandalorian’).

Factory 42 combines the magic of technology with the science of stories to create
emotionally engaging interactive experiences with purpose. Our team consists of leading
experts in game design and development, multi-sensory technology, animation, graphic design,
and immersive film, television, and live event production.

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DRHA EXHIBITION - RETTORATO: 10/9 (6:00-7:30 p.m.); 11-12-13/9 (1:00-3.00 p.m.)

SOUND AND VIDEO EXPERIENCES

(SALA BIANCA)

ALAA DARWISH ENRIQUE TABONE

(German University in Cairo) (University of Salford - Digital Curation Lab)
Azman Prestorjha - Data Sonification (2023)

Azman is an interactive narrative game concept This sound installation consists of an aural work
about the 1919 Egyptian Revolution against the based on the data gathered for the Naked Data
British occupation. Here presented as a video research project presented by Enrique Tabone and
installation, it introduces one of the most significant Toni Sant at DRHA 2022. This emerged from artistic
revolutions in the modern history of Egypt. Azman research on prehistoric female figurines found in
takes the player on a journey back in time, exploring Malta, which also led to the creation of a 3-meter-tall
images, meeting prominent Egyptian feminist role art installation called Ninfa. This originally appeared
models, and learning about their input in politics and as part of the Prestorjha exhibition at Spazju Kreattiv
society. The game allows players to become active in Valletta in March/April 2023. The sound art is
participants in critical events during the revolution. accompanied by a video document and three models
of Ninfa, which are based on the artist’s own body as
DAVID PRIOR seen through insights provided through the
(Falmouth University) prehistoric figurines. This data sonification presents
Of This Parish (Screening) the body elements as depicted in the Heritage Malta
figurine collection and captured in the dataset
Of This Parish is a film essay that follows St. Anthony developed by the artist Wikidata.
on a journey from a church tower to the threshold at
which its bells can be heard. The film is both a sonic TOMMASO CHERUBINI, LEONARDO CARDINALI, LUCA
portrait of the Parish of Sul and a meditation on the BEFERA
changing role of bells in a rural community. It was (MuTA Collective)
filmed on location in the parish of Sul and features Generative Symphony Project – Murazzi Variations II
the voice of Luís Costa, who was born in the region
and is one of the founders of the Binaural/Nodar, the The project shows a renewed perspective of the
art organization that co-produced the film with Murazzi – Turin's important cultural center
Liminal. Liminal is a UK studio, which explores the composed of several locations along the walls of the
relationship between, sound, space, and listening. Po riverside – mediated by digital factors and
generative elements. It enacts an audiovisual
installation in which archive materials are collected
and reproduced. The visual and sound data, relating
to artistic and cultural events that have occurred
there since the 1980s, are processed using machine
learning algorithms. Through the protagonists’
shreds of evidence, the installation retraces the
Murazzi evolution and context, in which artists such
as Subsonica, Willie Peyote, Vinicio Capossela,
Statuto, Linea 77, Africa Unite, and The Winstons
took part; at the same time, it revisits the audiovisual
contents through the unpredictable outputs
produced by artificial intelligence, projecting them
into the digital future towards which the city is
currently heading.

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VR EXPERIENCES
(SALA ATHENAEUM)

ZLATAN FILIPOVIC IOULIA MAROUDA, ADRIANA PARENTE

(American University of Sharjah) (Ghent University)
ReImagining the Past: VR Visitor Center Al-Jazirah Al Hamra Odin Theatre: Entangling Practices

Abandoned in 1971, Al-Jazirah Al-Hamra in the The artwork is part of the research project
Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah was a tidal island and “Practicing Odin Teatret Archive”, being developed
village that was inhabited up to the formation and at Ghent University. It is a translation of the analog
unification of the United Arab Emirates. This project archives of Odin Theatre into an XR experience of
aims to retell its story as a material artifact of the embodied techniques. Odin Theatre group has a long
community that merged into the new federation. tradition of more than 60 years, in which it has
Stemming back to ancient times of the medieval developed its psychophysical techniques and
Julfar settlement, today an archeological site near practices for actor training. In this interactive
Ras al Khaimah, Al-Jazirah Al-Hamra is located on the artwork made for Oculus Quest 2, Marouda &
trade routes between Asia and Europe. Using Parente are showcasing some exercises which
technologies of photogrammetry and volumetric represent a translation process, by extracting the
time-based videography, this presentation is intrinsic qualities in each one of them and
exploring the potential of storytelling using the interpreting them into interaction scenarios. The
aesthetic of 3D point cloud and mesh project additionally explores how an entanglement
representational modes. This immersive of exercises can renegotiate the learning process and
experimental documentary uses a range of create space for new ways of experiencing one’s own
volumetric video capturing strategies and 3D scenic presence.
reconstruction workflows exploring the limits of
AR/VR presentation modalities.
ANANYA RAJOO
JOHN M. TOENJES (University of Galway)
(UIUC - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) A Virtual Drift Through the Intersections of Tangible and
Gaining Cultural and Historical Dance Knowledge and Skill Intangible Cultural Elements in the City of Galway.
Sets through the VR Dance Application “Master Dancer”
The audience interacts with a digital map of Galway,
A virtual reality adventure/activity, Master Dancer is Ireland, to navigate through its public spaces using
being developed as a template for learning about audio and visuals. The map will have highlighted
historical personages through contextualizing them, locations where the viewer can ‘stop’ and interact
through direct interaction with their virtual avatar, with digital representations of tangible elements of
and through exploring and learning some aspects of cultural heritage (pathways, arches, etc.) and listen
their work through gameplay. It features Loïe Fuller, to intangible elements in the public spaces such as
a dancer and theatrical innovator active in Europe in stories (traditions, folklore, etc.) or soundscapes
the early 20th century, whom we consider the related to the location (the sound of the river, market
“grandmother” of technology-based dance theater. bustle, boat horns, etc.). While the stories and
After creating an account at a virtual ticket booth, the soundscapes serve as the primary narrative for the
user explores the lobby of the Folies-Bergère Theater user, at certain locations the visuals add to the
in Paris, where Fuller made her name. In the theater experience of digitally drifting through the public
lobby, various historical contexts are explored by the spaces. This project is an immersive experience
user: a gallery of posters of Fuller’s performances by where the audience explores the cultural heritage of
artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec, videos of historical the city through varied sensory experiences. It is an
dances by Fuller and her imitators, and a photo overlap of perspectives - of everyday city dwellers, of
gallery of collaborators and artists who were tourists, of artists, of local historians, of merchants.
influenced by her, such as composer Florent Schmitt The audience can drift through, get lost in alleyways
and poet Stéphane Mallarmé, that surrounds a bust and corners, and reflect on their perception of places,
of Loïe Fuller. All of these function in the virtual of their existence and roles in public spaces, and the
world as quest markers, which lead to a virtual ways in which we consciously and unconsciously
encounter by the user with a talking virtual Loïe contribute to the evolution of the cultural heritage of
Fuller. our cities.

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DRHA EXHIBITION - RETTORATO: 10/9 (6:00-7:30 p.m.); 11-12-13/9 (1:00-3.00 p.m.)

VR PERFORMANCE
(COURTYARD)

MARGHERITA LANDI, AGNESE LANZA

(Portsmouth University)
Peaceful Places

There is something that touches us all when we can let go of our resistance and share a hug. The global pandemic
has destroyed our trust in this simple act. "Peaceful Places" are the spaces between our arms. Can we learn to hug
again? Hugging is a gesture that we all know and share from birth. Being in a hug forces us to confront our
vulnerabilities, sometimes with the discomfort of proximity, but it can also open a temporal space where we can
allow ourselves the luxury of slowing down and finally listening to ourselves. Peaceful Places allows everyone to
transform their emotional state into motion, training their empathy and body to hug. Real people, with real
emotional bonds, lead the participant’s movements by sharing their tenderness, becoming archetypal characters
with whom we can all identify.

IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES
(CLAB)

JOAN KARLEN
(Independent Artist)
My Father's Song: Interaction Design Installation

Choreographer and media artist Joan Karlen invites participation and inclusion with digital media and contributes
to a wider range of ways of appreciating and understanding intersections between tangible and intangible
heritage. The installation juxtaposes large-scale public projection with private experience, and reflective content
with the grandeur of nature, the elements, ancestry, and generation. 19 projected, layered, and moving video
scenes are programmed to unfold quietly in 16-minute cycles revealing an array of visual stories altered by
participant interaction. The user interacts with a Kinect Xbox making editing decisions in real-time – drawing and
overlaying cursive and block text poetry, changing video dimensions, and generating animated leaves from their
fingertips. During each immersive installation cycle, the video scenes appear in a new, randomized order; the
work is never the same twice.

AI INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCE
(PRINCIPE D’ACAJA)

RANDOM QUARK: THEO PAPATHEODOROU*, JESSICA WOLPERT**

(*Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, **Goldsmiths University of London)
Lights! Dance! Freeze!

Lights! Dance! Freeze! is an experimental media art installation exploring tangible, whole-body interaction
between humans and machines; it invites participants to use their entire body, as a query, to explore dance musical
films and stitches the visual responses together to create new cinematic narratives. Using an RGB camera,
machine-learning-based skeleton tracking technology, and a custom pose and film indexing system, we track a
participant's movements and mirror them in real time by finding matching poses from well-known musicals. We
built a large database of hundreds of thousands of poses by scanning 50 musicals from different eras, from 1936’s
Wizard of Oz to 2016’s La La Land. As the participants move their bodies activating different movie clips from
different eras, they build a new custom montage of stories, breaking the linear narrative of the source material and
effectively rethinking time. Participants become the masters of the virtual world and the stars on the screen
become their puppets, forging an intimate connection between the real and virtual bodies.

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DRHA EXHIBITION - RETTORATO: 10/9 (6:00-7:30 p.m.); 11-12-13/9 (1:00-3.00 p.m.)

POSTERS
(SALA ATHENAEUM)

ANANYA RAJOO
(University of Galway) SALA WONG
A Practice-Based, Qualitative Research Model to Study the (California State University)
Intersection of Tangible and Intangible Elements of Culture in InterPlaces: Un-Local Art from Around the World
Hybrid Environments.
InterPlaces is a networked, Augmented Reality (AR)
The poster presentation illustrates a methodological platform through which 10 invited creators interpret
framework that combines practice-based, existing works of public art for local and
participatory research methods and qualitative international audiences. The project involved the
analysis to study digital cultures, the impact of digital collection of Art Spaces, Inc., which has led a public
heritage, and the evolution of digital society. As a sculpture program in the City of Terre Haute,
part of Rajoo’s ongoing doctoral research in Digital Indiana, U.S.A. for over 15 years. Each wonderful
Arts and Humanities, this methodology is developed sculpture responds to a specific location of Terre
to facilitate an embodied inquiry into the Haute, often addressing the history, culture and/or
sociocultural dimensions of hybrid spaces, which are geography of its corresponding site. These
defined as a combination of physical and digital sculptures are set firmly within their physical
spaces. In the context of a massive migration of our locations, and illuminate a sense of place for
day-to-day existence to hybrid spaces, Rajoo’s residents and visitors to contemplate and enjoy. To a
research is using this methodology to answer the certain extent, the city has grown and moved
timely question of how to rethink our existence as forward with these sculptures, as one-by-one they
spatial and social beings and reimagine our cultural started appearing and occupying places in the city.
identities by accounting for the combinations and
overlapping of physical and digital spaces. Through NATALIE WILLENS
the poster presentation, the intent is to demonstrate (CUNY Graduate Center)
how the design of this methodology is well-suited for ReQueering Spaces: Digital Mapping as a Tool for Reclaiming
research into the intersection of tangible and Spaces
intangible elements of culture in hybrid
environments. ReQueering Spaces is a project that aims to reclaim
these sites of queer arts activism through
GIULIA FABBRIS collaborative mapping and community education.
(Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia) What role does digital mapping play in both
Use, Reuse and Valorization: A Web App for the Italian preserving marginalized histories and developing
Cultural Heritage. models for space-making in ways that have the
potential to transform our current social-political
This contribution aims to present an ongoing PON landscape? How can digital maps serve as new sites
doctoral research project whose goal is to create a of collaborative identity formation, solidarity, and
web application for the valorization of the Italian radical forms of artistic activism? This workshop will
Cultural Heritage within the digital paradigm, explore the pedagogical, political, and artistic
starting from large repositories and narrowing down possibilities of ReQueering Spaces by inviting
the field to reuse and enhance existing resources. participants to develop their collaborative map of
The benefits deriving from its implementation will transgressive spaces using the HistoryPin interface.
be first and foremost the conservation and further Willens will also consider how this approach can be
dissemination of the Italian CH, with special used in educational settings as a way for young
consideration for the reuse of existing data and the people to produce knowledge about the past and the
adoption of digital standards, to valorize and future alongside other artists and activists.
promote the work of other institutions and
individuals. The online availability of resources is not
enough. They need to be integrated into formally
coherent, supplementable, and reusable
representations (Gagliardi/Guarino 2021).
Moreover, the application will be designed to be
intuitive, and adaptable to different audiences and
purposes.

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 Performing Cultural Heritage in the Digital Present - DRHA Conference 2023 | BOOK OF ABSTRACTS

Monday 11 September 2023

(AUDITORIUM--ALDO MORO COMPLEX-- 9.00-10.00 AM)

Keynote Presentation
by

ANNET DEKKER
(University of Amsterdam)

Annet Dekker is an independent researcher and curator. She is Assistant Professor of Archival
Science at the University of Amsterdam and Visiting Lecturer at London South Bank University.
Previously she was Researchof er Digital Preservation at Tate, London, tutor at Piet Zwart
Institute, Rotterdama , and Fellow at The New Institute, Rotterdam. She initiated aaaan.net with
Annette Wolfsberger in 2009; they coordinate artists-in-residences and set up strategic and
sustainable collaborations with national and international arts organisations. Previously she
worked as a Web curator for SKOR (Foundation for Art and Public Domain, 2010–12), was
programme manager at Virtueel Platform (2008–10), and head of exhibitions, education and
artists-in-residence at the Netherlands Media Art Institute (1999–2008). Together with
Annette Wolfsberger, she produced Funware, an international touring exhibition in 2010 and
2011 about fun in software (curated by Olga Goriunova). In 2014, she completed her PhD under
the supervision of Matthew Fuller on the conservation of net art at Goldsmiths University of
London, Enabling the Future, or How to Survive FOREVER. A study of networks, processes and
ambiguity in net art and the need for an expanded practice of conservation.

Introduced by
GABRIELLA GIANNACHI
(University of Exeter)

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Monday 11 September 2023

(ALDO MORO COMPLEX)

Parallel Sessions in the Morning

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MONDAY - 11/9/2023 (ROOM S2 – ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 10.30-12.00 a.m.

PANEL 1: DIGITAL HUMANITIES

CHAIR: ERMANNO MALASPINA (UNIVERSITÀ DI TORINO)

PAOLA PISANO, ROBERTO ROSSELLI DEL TURCO, CHIARA SOLMAZ KIVE

SENATORE* (University of Oregon)
(Università di Torino; *La Sapienza Università di Roma) The Intangible Frame of Architectures.
Digital Resources for Manuscripts: Between Fragmentation and
Development Prospects. Since Foucault’s famous discussion of the order of things, a
narrow trend of art historians has criticized the seemingly
The purpose of this contribution is to analyze the digital objective structure of art/architectural surveys,
resources available for research on manuscripts and their challenging different postulates and implications of the
evolution over time. The paper aims to highlight the prevailing classificatory system within the traditional art
problem of the fragmentary nature of these resources and history and survey art museum. Postcolonial critics have
how attempts have been made to resolve the problem. underlined some mechanisms through which the “other”
Problematic aspects of this issue and possible solutions to has been defined, ranked, and excluded. In fact, as a mode
resolve them will be discussed. There are several types of of representation, the survey defines architecture,
digital resources for manuscripts, which can be divided delaminates its scope, defines its major concerns, and
into three macro-categories: digital facsimiles for establishes its core values and principles. At the same time,
manuscript reproductions, digital scholarly editions (DSE) postulating a correlation between architecture and
in text-only format, and DSEs which offer digital facsimiles culture, the survey organizes the world through its
together with diplomatic and/or interpretative architecture, often establishing a core progressivist West
transcription. A structured tool to link together the above- against its “others.” This paper takes the book structure as
mentioned digital resources seems to be missing. To make an intangible, though poignant, cultural heritage that
up for this shortcoming, we propose a service in the form frames the tangible architectural traditions of the world.
of a web application offering a workspace for users: The utility of digital tools in analyzing the survey beyond
starting from the different types of resources present what is readily accessible through conventional modes of
online, the objective is to allow the user to collect, save and inquiry will be discussed.
link the data offered by each of them.
EMILIANO DEGL'INNOCENTI, CARMEN DI MEO, MAURIZIO
ANDREA BALBO SANESI, ALESSIA SPADI.
(Università di Torino) (DARIAH-IT; OVI-CNR)
Digital Classical Rhetoric: New Perspectives for an Old Discipline. DARIAH.it: Data Integration Strategies and Solutions for Digital
Resources and Research in the Arts and Humanities.
The term “digital rhetoric” is perhaps most simply defined
as the application of rhetorical theory (like analytic This contribution will focus on the research and
method or heuristic for production) to digital texts and development work done by the DARIAH (Digital Research
performances. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities) group of
writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate researchers at the OVI-CNR (Istituto Opera del Vocabolario
particular audiences in specific situations, as well as the Italiano of the National Research Council of Italy). It will go
processes of taking decisions or praising and blaming through several EU-funded projects, such as Social
someone. Already in 1997, Zappen suggested we need to Sciences & Humanities Open Cloud, and the IPERION-HS.
focus on eight areas to establish digital rhetoric as an DARIAH considers access provision to digital resources
integrated theory. Lately, in the 2016, VanKooten related to cultural objects held by cultural and/or memory
explained how digital rhetoric can be a fruitful result of institutions (such as Galleries, Libraries, Archives,
crossing over digital humanities, rhetorical composition, Museums, and Research Institutes), as well as the
and general rhetorical theory. In this context, the associated data and metadata curation tasks, as priorities.
contribution aims to examine which are the spaces to In particular, the paper will focus on the design and
develop classical digital rhetoric. The subject will be implementation of the RESTORE platform, initially
discussed by taking into consideration its performance developed as a pilot project within the SSHOC Cluster and
through the application of web tools. Moreover, the paper further developed as a set of tools and technologies to
will reflect on the methodological paradigms developed for support data collection and integration in the Humanities
studying ancient rhetoric through the digital humanities, and Heritage Science within the IPERION-HS project.
in particular focusing on research dissemination outputs
and public engagement.

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MONDAY - 11/9/2023 (ROOM S3 – ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 10.30-12.00 a.m.

PANEL 2: MUSEUM
CHAIR: ROSSANA DAMIANO (UNIVERSITÀ DI TORINO)

STÉPHANIE BERTRAND*, GEORGE PAPAGIANNAKIS**, GEORGE RÉMI OPALINSKI, ROMAIN COLLAUD, DELPHINE RIBES, EMILY
MARGETIS, STAVROULA NTOA, NICOLAS PARTARAKIS, GROVES, ANDREA SCHNEIDER AND NICOLAS HENCHOZ
XENOPHON ZABULIS AND CONSTANTINE STEPHANIDIS (EPFL+ECAL Lab)
(*ICS-FORTH and Concordia University; **ICS-FORTH and Exploring the Comprehension of Sequential Art: A Design Research
University of Crete; ICS-FORTH) Study on Photobooks in the Museum.
Curating Versus Personalization in Online Collections: Resolving
Recommender Systems’ Accuracy-Originality Trade-Off by Learning Despite debate about their definition, photobooks have
from In-Gallery Creative Curating Approaches. gained a large interest amongst scholars and editors over
the 21st century for their role in defining artistic and
This talk will propose an innovative filtering solution cultural identity (Shannon 2010, DiBello et al. 2012).
derived from in-gallery curatorial practices. The paper will However, work on improving the comprehension of
argue physical group exhibition practices, namely photobooks by large audiences remains low. The paper
associative approaches that have been dubbed “creative presents a design-research project which considers
curating”. Creative curating’s alternative logic can be photobooks in terms of a sequential art form, as a strategy
described by means of associative theory, a well- to foster the engagement and understanding of museum
established psychological model of creative thinking. This visitors. The intervention will focus on the collaboration
model holds that associations between remote elements between a Design Research Lab and a Photography
can be created in one of three ways: similarity, serendipity, Museum involved in the creation of a digital installation
or mediation through an implicit term. Throughout and extensive onsite observations with visitors. By
different examples, this intervention will explore the main including in-depth investigations on the use of AI, the talk
advantage and disadvantages of implementing this will illustrate also the methodology applied to design a
mediating logic in collection interfaces to facilitate the photobook installation able to stimulate emotional and
public’s discovery of art digitizations. The speculated cognitive impact amongst large audiences.
impact on user experience and interaction will be
discussed. YI-CHEN WU
(National Sun Yat-sen University)
JASMINE MAHMOUD, ERIC VILLIERS & I, the Moment of being Dis-Stance Together: Research into Online
(University of Washington, Seattle) Performance Design for the Interplay Between Intangible and Tangible
Pedagogies of Black Digital Curatorial Practices. Cultural Heritage.

How do we teach Black digital curatorial practices? How do This article employs a lens of hypermediacy to interrogate
digital engagements and technologies frame the curation how the use of mobile phones, apps, and GPS creates an
of Black artists? How might digital practices differently interplay between intangible and tangible cultural
consider the aesthetics, materiality, and form of Black art heritage. The creative process by the author’s Internet-
in museums and galleries, especially given the racist based performance work, “& I, the Moment of being Dis-
histories and practices of art institutions? Starting from Stance Together—Chapter of Generations” (2023) - which
these questions, this paper presents outcomes from was supported by grants from the Taiwanese
working on Black digital curatorial studies at sites across government’s Ministry of Science and Technology Project -
Seattle. These include: researching Black digital curation demonstrated how hypermediacy transforms the concept
within a digital humanities summer fellowship; working of scenography into online performance design that is
with the Washington Foundation to digitize and digitally characterized by a walk-about theatrical experience.
preserve their collections; teaching a micro-seminar on
Black curatorial and digital practices;
facilitating students to curate a Black art exhibition.

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MONDAY - 11/9/2023 (ROOM S4 – ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 10.30-12.00 a.m.

PANEL 3: THEATRICAL PERFORMANCE

CHAIR: ANTONIO PIZZO (UNIVERSITÀ DI TORINO)

ANDREA MALOSIO FRANCESCO MELCHIORRI

(Università di Torino) (Università IULM)
The Re-Use of the Classics as Intangible Cultural Heritage: the “Dead Theatrical Characteristics Behind Immersivity through the Idea of
Centre” Case. “Arche-Screen”: a First Case Study.

The subject of the speech is a case study of stage practice Festen. Il gioco della verità (2021) by Il Mulino di Amleto is
by the theatre company Dead Centre. Born in Dublin in the first Italian drama adaptation of the early Dogma 95
2012, founded by Bush Moukarzel and Ben Kidd (artistic movie Festen by Thomas Vinterberg. The theatre company
directors), the group has built its plays on the re-working from Turin chose to test the Danish masterpiece through
of great classics of literature, theatre, and philosophy, an original staging which puts in dialogue different media
combining the thought and the biographies of authors in a constant, simultaneous double storyline
from the past with the most contemporary languages and representation. With a live camera, the company shot a
technological tools. The intervention tries to bring out how part of the pièce in a non-stop sequence, which was
the work of Dead Centre is a significant case, as it projected on a transparent canvas on stage framing the
experiments with an interesting declination of scenic entire proscenium. With this solution. the audience was
practice in relation to the Classics: the work on the Classics able to follow both the real and live-action and the audio-
is to select, use, rehash, and transform material which is visual live streaming. Beyond the artistic result, Festen. Il
now part of the intangible asset of a culture, without gioco della verità would be considered a case study to
renouncing the most innovative languages and questions question interesting issues around the idea of immersive
of the contemporary. experience, intersecting with Mauro Carbone’s idea of
arche-screen. Finally, considering different media, human
ALICIA CORTS imagination and perception, and their complex inter-
(Carson-Newman University) structure, the paper will try to discuss the mutual influence
Not Honour'd with Human Shape: Shifting Shakespeare in the World between tangible and intangible heritage.
of VR.
ADRIANA LA SELVA*, IOULIA MAROUDA**
The works of William Shakespeare have long been (Ghent University - *S:PAM (Studies in Performing Arts and
reimagined through new digital technologies, from the Media); **IPEM (Institute for Psychoacoustics and Electronic
remediation of analog sources into optical disc imprints of Music)
his works to video games such as Elsinore and Fit for a Archi-Textures of Access: Virtual Translations of Embodied Knowledge
King. The advent of VR, however, brings a new layer of in Theatre Training.
possibility to Shakespearean performance: the post-
biological, or “the human beyond biology.” This project This audiovisual/virtual presentation proposal draws on
investigates the potentials that emerge when performers new approaches in Performance Studies concerned with
and audiences become unmoored from the constraints of the development of an epistemological framework for
the biological body with technologies like virtual reality. documenting theatrical training techniques through
The presentation analyses Shakespeare’s The Tempest as archival reconfigurations in virtual reality. It asks what it
performed in the VR app The Under Presents. It explores means to develop, practice, and perform an archive
the effect of skinning in other virtual spaces as a means of through the activation of Odin Teatret's (DK) embodied
containing these potentials rather than exploring them. legacy in a virtual environment, addressing the translation
Specifically, the work Sweet Sorrow (a VR application from of technique through Mixed Reality whilst developing
Carnegie Mellon University) will be analyzed. dramaturgical approaches to archival practices. This
presentation is informed by a funded interdisciplinary
project supported by the Research Foundation of Flanders-
Belgium, in association with Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium
(home of Odin Theatre).

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MONDAY - 11/9/2023 (ROOM S6 – ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 10.30-12.00 a.m.

PANEL 4: DIGITAL HERITAGE

CHAIR: ROBERTA SAPINO (UNIVERSITÀ DI TORINO)

JOHN D'ARCY, UNA LEE MARIA FESTA

(Queen's University Belfast) (Università di Torino)
Step Back to Look Forward: Rethinking Belfast’s Cultural Heritage New Trends in Anglophone Postcolonial Literature and Digital
through Digital Storytelling. Humanities: Face-as-image in Current Migration Narratives.

This paper reflects on a series of digital artworks created By starting from Mitchell’s concept of the “pictorial turn”,
by John D’Arcy and Una Lee. Each uses digital media and this paper explores the impact of the digital world and new
speculative fiction storytelling to address the past and media on the body of current migration narratives.
future urban redevelopment of Belfast. The works use a Migrants’ conditions are often characterized by political
mixture of traditional narrative and performance and/or economic crises. It occurres as a direct result of
strategies alongside new media platforms and techniques. colonial rule, decolonization, or neo-colonialism. Because
They do this to share representations of Belfast’s past, of the pictorial turn the human face itself has gained a
present, and future, and to question how Belfast’s cultural digital life, and the consequent ‘facialization’ of life
heritage is being variously nurtured and neglected. The experience allows individuals to take a predominant role
trio of works discussed in the paper are: North Street as real-life protagonists in their own real-life stories. These
(2018); Raise Your Expectations: Exchange 1NE (2018); real-life stories may be told by current migrants or
Belfast Before Flood: A New Living Museum (2023). The descendants of earlier migrants, by intellectuals as well as
paper frames these works within contexts of speculative by individuals working for the publishing industry who
fiction; site-specific storytelling and theatre; mainstream take a stand against the mainstream narrative of current
adoption of VR and XR technologies; and ongoing migrations engendering in return an online community. In
dialogues around Belfast’s urban regeneration and cultural these multimodal narratives, digital storytelling centering
heritage. on the daily experience of migrants also renders the
human rights issues facing stateless persons pressing and
CARMELINA CONCILIO immediate. The intervention analyses this issue under a
(Università di Torino) cross-disciplinary lens ranging from textual analysis,
Digital “Epitexts” and Literary Celebrities in (Postcolonial) Digital postcolonial theories, and visual studies.
Humanities.
KE ZHAO*, YI ZHANG**
The paper examines the role of distinguished writer’s (*Wuhan University, **Politecnico di Milano)
official websites (Amitav Ghosh, Madeleine Thien, Guiding the "Authentic" Digital Storytelling of Cultural Heritage in
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Teju Cole), as a source of VR/XR: A Trust Framework.
augmented hypertext, providing an interpretative key to
the author’s own creative works of fiction as well as to This paper examines the issue of trust in cultural heritage
their role of intellectuals as highlighted by their essay- in the context of digital humanities from the perspective of
production. Websites, as parallel “epitexts” (Genette 1989) digital storytelling. Particularly in the field of DH, there is a
to the published works, together with public interventions growing number of digital storytelling projects on cultural
on the web, for instance in the form of the so-called TED heritage that restore, represent, and disseminate historical
talks, the production of video-essays or photo-essays, culture. However, cultural heritage data itself is
blogs, and flash fictions and a whole series of new digital characterized by uncertainties such as imprecision,
genres, allows for a reflection and an assessment of new controversy, and incompleteness, and the application of
ways to produce, promote, publish and publicize literature. technology and media to the narrative process has raised
In the meanwhile, all this produces changes in the doubts about rigor and authenticity. As a result, the
perception of celebrities (Elliott 2018; Giles 2018), credibility of digital storytelling of cultural heritage has
creating new visibility/credibility for authors. The become an important topic. The aim of this paper is to
intervention aims at underlining a critical evaluation of the introduce a framework of trust for digital storytelling of
new digital contents, within the framework of DH, that cultural heritage that provides guidelines for stakeholders
surround successful literary works and their authors in the to design trustworthy digital presentations, explore new
Anglophone world. pathways for digital narratives with knowledge service
characteristics, and facilitate cultural communication.

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MONDAY - 11/9/2023 (ROOM S7 – ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 10.30-12.00 a.m.

PANEL 5: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

CHAIR: STEFANO PINARDI (UNIVERSITÀ DI TORINO)

MARCO BERTINI, PAOLO MAZZANTI

(Università degli Studi di Firenze - MICC) CRISTINA LOCATELLI, LUCA MELCHIONNA
Improving Museum Visitors' Engagement using Computer Vision Tools. (Machineria)
The AI Empire.
To make the museum experience more engaging and
captivating for visitors, it is essential to take a people- Should the cultural heritage sector jump on the
centered. This involves interacting with visitors in bandwagon and use artificial intelligence to develop
dynamic and powerful ways, providing them with content, engage visitors and improve their visiting, and
transformative learning experiences throughout their learning experience? Well, yes of course, but no, not
journey, from before their arrival to after their departure. really…
Playful, interactive, and immersive experiences can be While generative artificial intelligence has recently taken
employed to evoke emotions, inspire creativity, and the world by storm, Machineria used predictive AI for the
facilitate participatory learning. The integration of new cultural sector since 2016. By believing in the benefits that
technologies, specifically A.I. and Computer Vision tools, audiences and professionals could derive from tailored,
can help establish a stronger connection between structured applications, the company harnessed the best
artworks and visitors, leading to the development of a of new technologies and put them at the service of human
"phygital museum". This allows for the rethinking of creativity, for the purpose of learning and communicating.
museums in terms of diverse spaces, tools, and contexts, The many tools made available to the cultural sector are
with a variety of individuals and modes of interaction. thoroughly tried and tested to keep precisely their nature
Within the ReInHerit project has been developed a toolkit based on nurture and care for the relationship between an
that uses CV and AI technologies with the primary goal of institution and its public, blending in the background of the
letting visitors interact with collections and exhibitions in experience rather than taking center stage. The
a playful approach, based on gamification and learning-by- presentation will outline examples and statistics on
doing techniques. The development strategy for the Machineria’s works, as well as insights from the experience
ReInHerit toolkit involves the use of interactive tools, in the field.
which will increase visitor engagement in a user-centered
approach. YAEL EYLAT VAN ESSEN
(HIT)
LUC STEELS*, SOFIA BARONCINI** Integrating AI in Museums - A New Phase in Museum Transformation
(*Barcelona Supercomputing Center (Spain) and Venice
International University (Italy); **Alma Mater Studiorum - This paper will suggest that AI has the potential to
Università di Bologna) significantly alter the museum institution and can mark a
Bringing Digital Humanities to Life. Case studies for Figurative Art new phase in its continuous transformation. The
Interpretation. intervention will examine how the various operational
trajectories, made possible by the new AI tools, change
Significant recent advances in AI are progressively giving basic museum concepts and affect the museum's
DH a range of powerful tools to analyze and contextualize performance as an overall comprehensive system. Yet, in
artworks using techniques from computer vision, pattern order to understand the profound potential impact of AI
recognition, ontology engineering, natural language technologies in museums, the presentation will examine
processing, and the semantic web. These tools can help to not only the different ways in which AI applications are
analyze visual representations of artworks and enable being implemented in museums but also the
access to a vast range of additional online materials infrastructures and mechanisms on which they operate.
(catalog descriptions, art history texts, thesauri, etc.). The different agents and stakeholders (revealed and
However, to obtain their full potential we need to tackle concealed) involved in these processes and the power
three issues: (i) how to integrate the fragmented and structures that they form will be discussed. In this context,
sometimes contradictory information these various it will be explored how the distinct ecosystem generated
knowledge sources provide, (ii) how to make it much by AI industries - governmental and academic funding for
easier for art historians, curators, and artists to supply developments and innovations in the fields of AI and
more data and knowledge to the tools and use them more cultural heritage - is affecting the way in which museums
effectively, and (iii) how to enhance the art experiences of are designed.
viewers with this growing body of information. This paper
reports on progress in tackling these challenges.

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MONDAY - 11/9/2023 (ROOM S8 – ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 10.30-12.00 a.m.

PANEL 6: PARTICIPATION
CHAIR: TONI SANT (UNIVERSITY OF SALFORD)

ANA MORENO, NELSON ZAGALO*, HEITOR ALVELOS ALDA TERRACCIANO*, JULIANNE NYHAN**, ANDREW FLINN
(FBAUP - Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto, (The Sloane Lab, *University College London, **TU Darmstadt)
*University of Aveiro) Participation and Inclusion with Digital National Collections: Co-
Ecomusealia: Communication Strategies Through Digital Media in Designing the Sloane Lab.
Situ. The Case Study of the Alto Douro Wine Region.
The Sloane Lab project is funded by the UK Arts and
This article aims to legitimize the framing of the cultural Humanities Research Council program as part of Towards
landscape living elements in museological terminology. a National Collection (TaNC), a major investment using
Starting from the respective meanings of the terms digital technology to create a unified national collection of
Musealia and Cultural Landscape, the term "Ecomusealia" the UK’s galleries, libraries, archives, and museums with
is proposed as a meeting point of these two definitions. The the aim of “dissolving barriers between different
legitimation of the world "Ecomusealia" will be tested collections – opening UK heritage to the world” (TaNC,
through the development of a literacy and communication 2023). Its case study is the vast range of collections, from
strategy for the Alto Douro Wine Region Cultural coins to manuscripts, stuffed animals, natural specimens,
Landscape. The research is part of a communication books, and letters, held at the British Museum, Natural
project involving the Universities of Oporto and Aveiro, in History Museum, and British Library. The aim is to bring
collaboration with "Quintas of Douro", namely Casa do segments of these together online for the first time using a
Romezal. This research regards the museification of the co-design participatory methodology and to enrich
Cultural Landscape as a process that encompasses debates on issues such as imperialism, colonialism,
patrimonialisation and communication. It recognizes the slavery, loss, and destruction that have shaped the UK’s
convergence of the Cultural Landscape elements with the national collections until now. The presentation will cover
Museum Object, given their potential to bear witness as technical challenges and opportunities offered by the
authentic sources of knowledge and emotional experience, project, including the potential of technologies, such as IF,
and their divergence due to their function, context, and PIDs, and Linked Open Data for creating aggregated
dynamics. It also argues that the Cultural Landscape, collections (Padfield, 2020; Winters et al., 2022; Kotarski
perceived as an ecosystem, requires a communication et al., 2022) and the implications of restrictive copyright
strategy that promotes its literacy emphasizing the living frameworks for the reuse of collections (Wallace, 2022).
component.
DOMINIK LENGYEL*, CATHERINE TOULOUSE**
SALLY ANN SKERRETT (*BTU Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-
(German University in Cairo) Senftenberg; **Lengyel Toulouse Architects)
Grandmother, Mother, Daughter, a 19th Century Egyptian Visualization as a Way of Mediating the Interplay of Tangible and
Inheritance: Exploring the Impact of Archival Storytelling through a Intangible Heritage.
Site-Specific 3D Projection Mapping Exhibit in a Private Historic
House. Tangible heritage in architecture, and this applies
especially to antiquity, is often in a state of advanced
The intervention aims at presenting research based on the erosion. Viewing is therefore generally restricted,
application of 3D projection mapping to create an protective devices and barriers allow neither use nor
impactful exhibition prototype to convey the history of a viewing separate from the historical romanticism of the
private family archive in a private house. The enquired actual intellectual achievement hidden behind the visible.
archive is housed in the Sabit Villa in Cairo. The archive and Common visualizations attempt to convey a true-to-life
collection span two centuries of inter-related Egyptian picture of the building’s past, but in doing so they rely
military, political, and diplomatic public figures and are mainly on speculation and convey above all an image of a
relatively inaccessible to the public. The exhibit narrative world from which we are far removed today. In order to
tells of three generations of independently wealthy resolve this dilemma and to direct the view back to the
Egyptian Muslim women, matrilineal inheritance, Islamic intention of the original builders, the paper will present a
inheritance laws, and trusts between 1830 and 1980. The method developed for the visualization of uncertainty,
paper concludes with reflections on the impact of the which, based solely on the state of knowledge in
exhibition on a variety of audiences. archaeology, gives an idea of the intention of the builders
of tangible heritage.

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 Performing Cultural Heritage in the Digital Present - DRHA Conference 2023 | BOOK OF ABSTRACTS

Monday 11 September 2023

(AUDITORIUM--ALDO MORO COMPLEX-- 3.00-4.00 PM)

Keynote Presentation
by

JOHN CASSY
(FACTORY 42)

John Cassy is the Founder and Chief executive of Factory 42, one of the UK's leading immersive
content studios. The company's mission is to reimagine the future of entertainment and has a
multi-disciplinary team made up of artists, producers, engineers, animators, writers,
researchers, gamers and an architect, and a neuroscientist.
Commercial partners include Sky, the BBC, Google, Facebook, and Magic Leap while the
company also works with a wide range of publicly funded organizations ranging from Innovate
UK and AHRC to the Natural History Museum, Science Museum, Tate, and Royal Academy. The
company also works with talent including Sir David Attenborough and the environmentalist
Chris Packham. Prior to founding Factory 42, John spent 10 years at Sky, Europe's largest
entertainment company, where he ran TV channels and commissioned programming on
subjects as diverse as arts, Premier League football, and golf's Ryder Cup. He is a Trustee of
London's Almeida Theatre and on the Advisory Board of the National StoryFuture Academy. He
has an MA from St John's College, Cambridge, and is an Honorary Professor at the University of
Exeter.

Introduced by
GABRIELLA GIANNACHI
(University of Exeter)

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 Performing Cultural Heritage in the Digital Present - DRHA Conference 2023 | BOOK OF ABSTRACTS

Monday 11 September 2023

(ALDO MORO COMPLEX)

Parallel Sessions in the Afternoon

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MONDAY - 11/9/2023 (ROOM S2– ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 4.30-6.00 p.m.

PANEL 1: PERFORMANCE
CHAIR: ALICIA CORTS (CARSON-NEWMAN UNIVERSITY)

IRENE PIPICELLI TONI SANT, ENRIQUE TABONE

(Università di Torino) (University of Salford - Digital Curation Lab)
The Rumor Underneath: A Feminist Approach to Performance-based Art through Wikidata: A Digital Curation Perspective.
Arts Conservation.
Digital Curation Lab Director started a research project
The purpose of this intervention is to highlight how exploring the visualization of specific datasets from
feminist thinking pushes us to understand conservation Wikidata for artistic practice in 2019. Initially, this
practices today as distributed, open-ended, dynamic, and involved digital curation work conducted by Tabone on the
collective networks of care, involving different kinds of women artists whose works are in the University of
bodies (human, organic, and inorganic), documents, media, Salford’s Art Collection. Through data analysis, employing
institutions and communities. The paper will point out Wikidata tools, this project revealed how works by women
some key elements to fully acknowledge the relevance of and non-binary artists can be given greater public
this contamination. The discussion considers crucial the visibility, while also suggesting ways for addressing the
concepts of intangibility, materiality, temporality, gender gap. Employing SPARQL language and data
contemporaneity, presence, and survival, emphasizing visualization tools on the wiki platform, this artistic
how the study of performance-based practices, feminist research project has developed a creative workflow model
thinking, and contemporary conservation studies for processing essential information about art collections
contribute to a crucial redefinition of these concepts in the and specific museum structures. For DRHA 2023, the
present. It explores three key points: (a) the radical project will bring together the research work conducted
transformation of the archive in response to feminist over the previous years, towards a coherent conclusion.
thinking, disrupted by the unforeseen intervention of the This will be demonstrated through a sound and video art
feminist subject. (b) The unprecedented relevance the installation (see DRHA Exhibition) accompanied by a
body assumes, both as the object of theory and site of physical object intended to extend the concept of
knowledge production, and its impact on the materiality beyond the specific contents of Wikidata,
comprehension of documental bodies. (c) the feminist which are taken to be a medium of production rather than
notion of care as the backbone for radical conservation dissemination.
practices in contemporary institutions.
RAFFAELLA TARTAGLIA
JULES PELTA FELDMAN (Università di Roma Tre)
(Bern Academy of the Arts) The Impact of Choices: the DIAL Project.
Reperformance, Reenactment, Simulation: Notes on the Conservation
of Performance Art. With reference to digital culture, the paper focuses on the
value of the artwork and its conservation. The intention is
Focusing on several works by Marina Abramović and their to open a discussion based on the complex system of value
representations in multiple media, the presentation will attribution in order to distinguish, on the one hand, the
introduce and assess multiple forms of analog and digital human factors involved from the moment of the work's
simulation – historical reenactment, film and television creation until its fruition and, on the other hand, how to
products, and lately video games – arguing how the last are manage them through new conservation methods that can
those that most effectively transmit aspects of historical support museum strategies suitable for the management
performance works, which, otherwise, would be difficult of complex works. DIAL (Digital Index of an Artwork's Life)
or impossible to save. Focusing on the Abramović parody is analyzed as a case study. The software is intended as a
games of computer scientist/game artist Pippin Barr support tool for museum professionals to encourage
(2010–2015) – which were not intended as a form of reflection on the impact of decision-making processes on
heritage conservation – this paper demonstrates that the artwork's life cycle. DIAL replaces the standard object-
conserving performance through simulation does not based research of museum conservation practice with a
necessarily demand sophisticated immersive technologies process-based one, incorporating a qualitative approach
or lifelike graphics. Indeed, the pared-down, “8-bit” style of that considers the entire life of an artwork. It aims to
Barr’s games, exploits the medium’s very simplicity to challenge professionals dealing with complex artworks to
provide an effective simulation of performance that is adopt a considered approach, aware of the impossible
unavailable from other forms, even transcending some of neutrality of any interpretation, conservation, or display
the ethical and art historical concerns raised by more treatment.
standard solutions.

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MONDAY - 11/9/2023 (ROOM S3 – ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 4.30-6.00 p.m.

PANEL 2: MUSEUM
CHAIR: GABRIELLA GIANNACHI (UNIVERSITY OF EXETER)

EKO SAPUTRA CAROLA DEL PIZZO

(Università degli Studi di Teramo) (FINO - Northwestern Italian Philosophy)
Museopolis.EU: Virtual Museum and Exhibition for Promoting the Bathing in Pink Glitter, Swimming in Neons, Dipping in Cloudlike Ball
Traditional Polish's Artistic Pottery of Boleslawiec. Pits: Three Case Study Museums to Delve into the Immersive Era.

The paper presents the project of Museopolis.EU, a web- The paper tries to access a tangled debate through the
based virtual museum that showcases the most intriguing analysis of some recurrent patterns inside three beloved
and significant archive from the Polish-Czech borderland. Italian pop-up installations: the Museum of Dreamers,
The institutions digitized and cataloged a selection of visitable in Milan till March 2023, the Beautiful Gallery,
exhibits from their and other museums' collections. Both with its two venues in Bologna and Milan and the Balloon
traditional photographs and 360-degree visualizations of Museum, rewarded as Best Proprietary Format 2022
the exhibitions' images are used to present essential during the prestigious Best Event Award Festival. With a
information about the objects on display. On the portal, philosophical approach enriched by socio-anthropological
one may find both the artifacts displayed in permanent and psychological considerations, the intervention will
exhibitions as well as the rarest and most precious pieces identify and explore four common characteristics of these
held in the museum's storerooms. Different forms of immersive exhibitions: the sense of surreality evoked by
engagement with the archive are made possible through the layouts, their transitory nature, their emphasis on
this platform. It might be viewed as a unique opportunity synaesthetic experiences, and, last but not least, the
to provide audiences with creative and different ways to presence of balls pits. In an effort to avoid any polarized
engage with cultural heritage assets. The objective of the judgment,the primary purpose is to arouse new questions
virtual exhibition is to engage viewers to value and about and through these features. "
appreciate the heritage in addition to providing
amusement and boosting heritage understanding. DELMA RODRIGUEZ MORALES
(Cultural Ring UY - Anilla Cultural Latinoamérica-Europa en
TIAGO CRUZ, MARISA PEREIRA SANTOS Uruguay & redes globales)
(FLUP / CITCEM) Anthology of an open-ended: MuRe, Museography Networking.
Cultural Heritage and Mediation: The Use of ICT in the Gestation, Landmarks and Regressions with Opportunities for All.
Communication of the Artistic Layers of the Church of Saint John the
Baptist of Foz do Douro. This paper describes a museography process in advanced
Internet networking that connects museums, tangible and
Nowadays, we are witnessing the growing importance of intangible heritage locally and globally. The text covers
digital media as tools for research, dissemination, and three fundamental stages - from 2014 to the present - the
promotion of Cultural Heritage within communities. gestation and shaping of a new project, its successful
Considering, as a case study, the Parish Church of Saint development, along with current challenges and
John the Baptist of Foz do Douro, located in the regressions as a consequence of the pandemic. The paper
westernmost area of the city of Porto, the intervention focuses on the proposal of networked museography,
intends to demonstrate how the realization of a 3D known mainly in the Latin American region and Spain, by
reconstruction of the building's evolution and a 360º visit the acronym MuRe. "MuRe, museography networking"
contributed to the dissemination and promotion of local aimed to create an exhibition circuit on the Internet, with
heritage among the community. As we shall see, the narratives around heritage objects, dialogues, and
possibility of applying new tools, arising from interactions in real-time with these objects, where only
technological development, to (re)cognition of the their exhibition as a whole existed through advanced
specificities and importance of the history and stories of Internet networks.
the built groups contributes decisively to the
strengthening of bilateral relations and to the interaction
between civil society and its collective Cultural Heritage.
The use of ICTs, framed in the new forms of access and
organization of knowledge, has been assuming an
increasingly central and essential role in the field of DH,
extending, as envisioned in the Porto Santo Charter (2021),
the territories of participation and cultural
democratization to the digital field.

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MONDAY - 11/9/2023 (ROOM S4– ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 4.30-6.00 p.m.

PANEL 3: INTERMEDIA
CHAIR: SUSAN BROADHURST (BRUNEL UNIVERSITY)

MARIA CHATZICHRISTODOULOU FLAVIA DALILA D'AMICO

(Kingston University) (La Sapienza Università di Roma)
Digital Storytelling for Libraries as Community Hubs. Reperto AntropoLogico 1997 by Giacomo Verde: The Distribution of the
Sensible.
The paper will briefly present the ACE-funded project
'Asset Based Storytelling in Kingston' alongside UK Starting from the analysis of the installation “Reperto
Libraries' vision to transform into community hubs, AntropoLogico 1997” by Giacomo Verde, the contribution
neighborhood spaces, or other (depending on local highlights the ability of some digital works to perform
authority vision and terminology) and present early plans what the philosopher Jacques Rancière calls “distribution
on a follow on the project that intends to integrate digital of the sensible”. Reperto AntropoLogico 1997 was exhibited
technologies as a means of reaching out to a wider range of only once in 1997. On the occasion of the recent exhibition
underserved communities and different demographics "Liberare Arte da Artisti" at the Camec in La Spezia, the
(e.g. young adults). The intervention will reflect on work was restored. The process of renovation allowed to
successful digital storytelling initiatives within observe the installation from another perspective. Indeed,
comparable contexts of public resource and community it was assumed as an acknowledgment of an absence: the
engagement in order to identify learnings we could employ author of the writing could not move on his own legs, then
for our projects. The follow on project is being developed how and where did this person-body end up? Who can take
between Kingston University, Camden Libraries, and the part or not to the cultural system? Another work that
Digital Humanities Lab, University of Sheffield. suggests a similar question is “Cordata” by the artist Chiara
Bersani. “Cordata” is a sound performance that can only
ANNA MARIA MONTEVERDI exist thanks to the union of different bodies in form,
(Università degli Studi di Milano) rhythm, identity, place, and perception. It is a soundscape
Set Art Free from Artists! Giacomo Verde's Archive, between Digital to be listened to with headphones immersed in nature and
Arts and Theatre. guided by Chiara Bersani's voice. In the context of the
performance, the artist's voice is the glue for a collective
Giacomo Verde (1956-2020) was a pioneer in interactive action but at the same time, it is a declaration of Chiara
art, video theatre, and net-art. His works were Bersani's impossibility to stay there. The voice reveals an
characterized by the employment of low-technology absence. In conclusion, the paper questions the power of
equipment, a choice motivated both by ethical and political digital technologies to engage or not different political
stances and the will to share his creative practices making subjectivities, fostering their accessibility.
them accessible to everyone. As video artist and activist, he
explored the use of electronic and digital video images in FREDERICO DINIS
theatre and performances. Among the highlights in his (CITER - Portuguese Catholic University)
career, he collaborated with Van Gogh TV during Audio-Visual Re-Enactment Practices of Intangible and Tangible
Documenta IX for the famous Piazza Virtuale project Heritage.
(1992), and worked with the group Correnti Magnetiche
for performances and installations using virtual reality in This paper explores the audio-visual and memory
the early 90s - see for instance Per Krizia (1994), and the relationship that confronts a sense of place with a
popular Euclide with Pi greco group, in the same year, “repertoire in intermedial mode” (Bénichou, 2020).
where he animated virtual characters by the cyber glove. Assuming that memory is a continuous performative act
Interaction for Verde was not just a characteristic of digital (Schneider, 2011), the role of memory is examined
technologies and a pathway to be explored by art. It was a through the audio-visual context by discussing: (a) the
modality of social relations, the substance of human process of re-enactment and its relationship with the
experience. The talk is an exploration of Verde's archive memory work, (b) the new intermediate forms of memory
that gave birth to the first anthological exhibition (La representation as a resource for research-creation, (c)
Spezia, June 2022) curated by Anna Monteverdi. memory as a basis for the elaboration of audio-visual re-
significations. This paper also relates these possibilities of
re-signification of audio-visual performance through a
dual path of reflection and artistic representation that
resulted from a previous project developed under an art-
based research regime (Dinis, 2021) developed
throughout several processes of intangible and tangible
heritage re-enactments in Portugal.

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MONDAY - 11/9/2023 (ROOM S6– ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 4.30-6.00 p.m.

PANEL 4: DIGITAL HERITAGE

CHAIR: CARMELINA CONCILIO (UNIVERSITÀ DI TORINO)

MARUŠA LEVSTEK, ANDY WOODS, ISABELLE VERHULST, LARYSSA BETHANY JOHNSTONE

WHITTAKER, POLLY DALTON, JAMES BENNETT (University College London)
(Royal Holloway, University of London) Whirling Around a Digital Future.
The People’s Metaverse – The Story Trails Project and Cultural
Heritage.
This paper begins by outlining research conducted before
StoryTrails is the UK’s largest immersive storytelling the pandemic that investigates the reality of such a digital
project that utilized audio, archive footage, and 3D turn in dance. The research questioned whether or not the
scanning technology to bring to life the untold stories from digitization of dance archives could offer a way to engage
15 different regions in the UK. This talk will present online audiences, increasing the visibility and awareness
research conducted by a team of psychologists, of its content to establish a new online community. The
sociologists, and anthropologists, aiming to evaluate the paper will explore the ways in which dance archives can
impact and effectiveness of the StoryTrails project. plan for a digital future, whilst also satisfying the user’s
Through the use of surveys (N = 728), observations, and quest for dance performance online. By investigating how
booth-assisted video interviews (N = 197), we assessed the digitization and digital infrastructures can promote the use
audience's response to the project and its potential as an of dance archive content, insights will be proposed on how
educational and engaging community-bonding tool. users may access to dance archive collections.
Overall, this research highlights the potential of immersive
storytelling as an effective tool for bringing people closer QUANG HUY NGUYEN*, MARIANNA BELVEDERE, LUCA DE
to their place and each other. This talk will provide SANCTIS, MARIALETIZIA TRAMONTIN, FABIO FOSSATI, GIUSEPPE
valuable insights to future researchers and practitioners in DE ROSA, SERGIO CAMICI, SILVIA MONTINI AND JOVENTINA
the field of immersive storytelling, demonstrating the role ALEKSI
of technology and storytelling in cultural heritage. (*Politecnico di Milano; Spazio Geco società cooperativa)
Digital Fabrication for Cultural Heritage Enhancement: A Tale of
SOFIA BARONCINI, MARILENA DAQUINO, FRANCESCA TOMASI Three Projects.
(Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna)
Erwin Panofsky's Interpretations. An Exploratory Data Analysis. Digital Fabrication technologies discover methods to form
physical reproductions from 3D digital models. The goal of
Quantitative methods allow scholars to frame traditional this paper is to explore the possibility of using various
inquiries of art history, such as detecting gaps in the digital fabrication techniques, particularly 3D printing or
literature and identifying patterns. However, the Computer Numerical Control machines, through in-depth
availability of relevant, structured data describing historical, archaeological, and cultural research, in order to
iconographical and iconological studies, as well as create highly interactive and speculative experiences in a
competing for artwork interpretations, is limited. specific heritage site. This research describes a process of
Nonetheless, having such curated, semantic data would CH valorization and digital reproduction taking place in
foster the creation of tools useful to both art historians and three sites with distinctive objectives. Firstly, a visually
the general public in order to explore in a user-centered and audibly experiential space was proposed in Belgioioso
fashion the knowledge graph of art history. In this paper, Castle. Secondly, it was a new conception of the
we present a case study, based on a selection of Erwin “Wunderkammer” with highly accessible technology so as
Panofsky’s works (1933, 1955, 1969, 1972), wherein to reproduce Carlo Vidua’s artifact collection at the Civic
interpretations are represented according to RDF, the Museum of Casale Monferrato. Finally, the intervention
standard of the semantic web, and the exploratory data will present the application of the reproductive model in
analysis (EDA) of his research results. cultural representation and didactic activity.

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MONDAY - 11/9/2023 (ROOM S7– ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 4.30-6.00 p.m.

PANEL 5: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & DIGITAL COGNITION

CHAIR: VINCENZO LOMBARDO (UNIVERSITÀ DI TORINO)

CATHERINE BOURNE BEATRICE SARTORI

(University College Cork) (Indipendent Scholar)
BenjAImin: A Creative Turing Test for AI. Framing Artificial Intelligence in Contemporary Art Practices: Power
Relations, Non-human Identities and Consciousness.
Artificial creativity is a branch of artificial intelligence that
has been studied since the middle of the 20th century but The intervention wants to investigate how artificial
has only become truly capable of mimicking human intelligence technology embeds political, cultural,
creativity in the past decade with its primary purpose economic, and historical forces. This point will be
being to study, simulate and enhance human creativity. discussed following Hito Steyerl's works on predictive
With advances in modern technology, it is purported that systems and machine learning. The second purpose of the
machines can be trained to be creative. But are machines paper will be to frame how artificial intelligence can affect
capable of creativity as we understand the term? As the the way we perceive the world and the non-human
Turing Test is widely considered a benchmark for testing identities around us. In this regard, it will discuss the way
artificial intelligence if an AI were to undertake such a test Jenna Sutela uses AI as an interface to communicate with
relating to creativity and pass, could we consider AI bacteria and microorganisms by creating interspecies
creative? relational systems. Finally, the third question mark sought
The presentation will deliver an overview of the project to be included in the discourse concerns how artificial
BenjAImin, a microprocessor-based “robot” that intelligence can affect our emotions, bodies, and
undertakes to deliver a Turing Test to various AI but asks consciousness. In this respect, Jon Rafman's surreal and
questions related to the act of creativity and art making. uncanny landscapes and AI-powered virtual simulations
by Ian Cheng will be explored to reflect on the interplay
LUCA BEFERA between artificial intelligence and human consciousness
(Università di Torino) raising questions about the nature of reality, the limits of
Generative Social Knowledge in Participative Artworks: Two Case technology, and the potential of AI to shape our
Studies by Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico. experiences and our understanding of the self.

Participative interaction has become increasingly HYUK-JIN LEE

prominent in intermedia works since the second half of the (Texas Woman’s University)
Twentieth Century, generally involving theatre Phenomenological Analysis of Sonic Heritage and the Role of Virtual
productions, museum installations, videogames, or Reality.
internet art. The socio-political relevance of technology
significantly changed over the last decades according to It is important for us to understand how our cognition is
the so-called transition from the second to the third wave composed of different types of experiences of an object as
of human-computer interaction, where digital media stand it is closely related to our recognition of cultural heritage.
as pervasive and concealed entities strictly entangled with In addition to visual information, it is also important to
human activity. Consequently, artists have been understand our cognition of auditory information because
considering concepts such as artificial intelligence and big auditory information is one of the most important
data from a feminist or post-human perspective, thus components comprising the intangible heritage. According
comparing physical reality and human relationships with to UNESCO (Rancier 2019), oral traditions and expressions
intangible data and automated tools. Within this are intangible heritage type which includes proverbs,
framework, the present paper proposes a reflection on the riddles, tales, legends, myths, epic songs and poems,
role of data science in the artistic field, taking as reference charms, chants, songs, and more. Recently, there have been
works of the company HER: She Loves Data founded by the discussions on including non-human sounds, so-called,
digital artists Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico in sonic or acoustic heritage to the scope of intangible
2015. heritage. However, there have been few studies explaining
the theoretical basis of sonic heritage. Therefore, in this
study, the philosophical importance of auditory
information as an intangible heritage is discussed from the
phenomenological point of view.

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 Performing Cultural Heritage in the Digital Present DRHA Conference 2023 | BOOK OF ABSTRACTS

PANEL 6: PARTICIPATION
CHAIR: ROSA TAMBORRINO (UNIVERSITÀ DI TORINO)

MARTIN DEBATTISTA
(Institute of Tourism Studies)
Counterfactual History as Intangible Heritage: Developing an
Immersive WWII Digital Game.

This paper details the experience of developing a Second LARA CORONA

World War digital strategy game with immersive virtual (Universitat Internacional de Catalunya)
reality as its gaming environment. The aims and objectives The Digital Content: An Opportunity to Enjoy Collections.
of the game are to provide an intangible heritage
interpretation experience, based on counterfactual This study aims to highlight to what extent museums with
history, rather than a simple ludic experience dispensed by archaeological collections and those with historical items
most of the games in the market. The chosen historical have embraced the digitalizing process to improve the
event is the planned, but never executed, Axis invasion of accessibility of collections. Data was collected in 31
the British-held island fortress of Malta in 1942. This countries by disseminating a survey to the offices of ICOM
particular aspect of the war in the Mediterranean had and direct invitations to museums. Finally, the study
already received attention in board games and video underlines different channels through which collections
games as early as the 1980s, providing both gameplay and are made accessible. Amidst them, social media (70%)
ample ‘what if?’ possibilities. The aim of this game is not prevails over the others, thereby allowing people to
pure entertainment but re-engagement with history and participate and interact with museums actively.
giving agency to players within an accurate and authentic
historical framework. This can be presented as an DAISY BOW DU TOIT
intangible heritage interpretation. (Kingston University)
Preserving Heritage Crafts in the Digital Age: The Impact of Social
ELAINE ALMEIDA Media Content Creation.
(Universidade de Lisboa)
Between Scenarios: Traces of Customs in Tullio Victorino's Paintings. Craft-based content creation through social media
platforms has emerged as a powerful tool for the
The article intends to present a summary of the preservation of intangible cultural heritage. In the UK,
investigations carried out so far on the Portuguese painter where many heritage crafts are at risk of becoming extinct
Tullio Victorino, the characters, paths, and scenarios due to a lack of new practitioners, social media-savvy
portrayed by him throughout his journey. By instruments crafters are using their digital skills to learn and share
that aim at the conservation and communication of the traditional craft practices. The Heritage Craft Association
National Cultural Heritage and through the construction of (HCA) has recognized the positive impact of social media-
a digital heritage collection on the artist’s life and work, the based strategies on the preservation of dying crafts, such
investigation uses the digital resources of online artistic as rug tufting, and has updated their Red List of
communities, visiting the institutions that own their Endangered Crafts from ‘critically endangered’ to ‘viable’
works, Museum collections, and private collectors, as well to reflect this shift. This paper explores the ways in which
as interviews with the local community, in Cernache de social media-based content creation can be harnessed to
Bonjardim and its surroundings. The purpose is to present support the preservation of intangible cultural heritage
to the public the data obtained through digital experiences and how craft-based content creators can be recognized
of immersion in the scenes imagined in the works. Finally, for their impact in wider institutions.
in addition to the immersive experience in the painted
scenarios, the aim was to elaborate and materialize the
Casa-Museu Tullio Victorino project, for the dissemination
and appreciation of cultural heritage.

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Tuesday 12 September 2023

(AUDITORIUM--ALDO MORO COMPLEX-- 9.00-10.00 AM)

Keynote Presentation
By
CAROLYN CHRISTOV-BAKARGIEV
(Director of Castello di Rivoli -
Museo d’Arte Contemporanea)

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev has been Director of the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte
Contemporanea since 2016. She has also been Artistic Director of the Fondazione Francesco
Federico Cerruti in Turin since 2018 and Honorary Guest Professor at the FHNW University of
Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland since 2021. Curator at Villa Medici, Rome
(1998-2000), she was Chief Curator at MoMA /P.S.1 in New York (1999-2001). From 2002 to
2008 she was Chief Curator at Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea (and interim
director in 2009). In 2008 she curated the 16th Biennale of Sydney, Australia, and was the
Artistic Director of dOCUMENTA(13) in Kassel in 2009-2012. In 2012 she also received the
Hessian Award. Following dOCUMENTA(13), she was a Getty Research Scholar in Los Angeles
(2013), Leverhulme Professor at the University of Leeds (2014) and Edith Kreeger Wolf
Distinguished Visiting Professor in Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University (2013-
2019). She directed the 14th Istanbul Biennial in 2015. From 2016 to 2018, in addition to the
Castello di Rivoli, she was also Director of the GAM Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e
Contemporanea in Turin. In 2019 she received the Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial
Excellence. Her major publications include the volume Arte povera (London, Phaidon Press,
1999), as well as monographs on Alberto Burri (1996), William Kentridge (1998), Janet Cardiff
(1999), Pierre Huyghe (2004), Anna Boghiguian (2017), Hito Steyerl (2019) and Michael
Rakowitz (2019). From the perspective of her research, Christov-Bakargiev is known for having
introduced the topic of multi-species co-evolution in the field of art with the dOCUMENTA(13)
exhibition in 2012 as well as for having premiered in 2022 a physical/digital/nft work (Beeple’s
Human One) in a museum for the first time globally. She was in the jury of the Nasher Sculpture
Prize 2022 awarded by the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, she be in jury for the Gwangju
Biennale Park Seo-Bo Art Prize at the 14th Gwangju Biennale 2023, and in the Wolfgang-Hahn
Preis one in 2024

Introduced by
GABRIELLA GIANNACHI
(University of Exeter)
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 Performing Cultural Heritage in the Digital Present - DRHA Conference 2023 | BOOK OF ABSTRACTS

Tuesday 12 September 2023

(ALDO MORO COMPLEX)

Parallel Sessions in the Morning

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TUESDAY - 12/9/2023 (ROOM S2– ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 10.30-12-00

PANEL 1: DIFFICULT HERITAGE

CHAIR: SUSAN BROADHURST (BRUNEL UNIVERSITY)

KATE CATTERALL, JOSEPH ROBINSON HILARY WHITHAM SÁNCHEZ, SYNATRA SMITH

(University of Texas; Independent Scholar) (Purchase College - SUNY; Philadelphia Museum of Art)
Walking the Ring of Steel: Locating the Troubles in Belfast. Philly Necrofutures: Combining Academic Research with Digital Tools
to Highlight Black Artworks in Predominantly White Institutions.
Drawing the Ring of Steel was a one-day commemorative
event to mark the 30-year ethno-nationalist conflict in Philly Necrofutures is a research partnership between
Northern Ireland, 1969-89, colloquially known as the Synatra Smith and Hilary Whitham Sánchez to address the
Troubles. It took place in Belfast City Center on March lacuna in public and scholarly knowledge around the
24th, 2022 and was designed as a moment of shared western and central African artworks held at the PMA. The
commemoration for all those who endured the conflict, project combines excavation with speculation, as reflected
while providing a unique opportunity to tell and gather in its name. Utilizing local terminology identifying the city
stories about daily life during the Troubles before the of Philadelphia underscores the aim is to benefit not only
period passes from living memory. Walking the Ring of the museum and stakeholders within the scholarly
Steel is a proposal for an app to guide locals and visitors on community, but also the general public in this majority-
guided tours of the old security cordon. The app displays Black city. The primary concerns included assessing the
historical images of the structures, mapping them onto suitability of available technologies and identifying
relevant sites in the contemporary city, where financial and institutional constraints, as well as
development has elided most traces of the conflict. considering the broader ethical implications of sharing
these works that prioritize heritage-bearers on the
HOLLY TURPIN continent and locally. Philly Necrofutures demonstrates
(Loughborough University) the way scholarly research and digital humanities can be
What Can Immersive Digital Storytelling Tell Us about the Homeless used as complementary tools to disrupt the white
Heritage and Experience of Place? supremacist, patriarchal paradigms of the galleries,
libraries, archives, and museum (GLAM) industry and their
How can immersive media be used in research on social attendant lack of support for non-white scholarship,
challenges and as a tool for disenfranchised communities? instead centering anti-racist collaborative initiatives. In
The aim of the paper is to explore how immersive media this presentation, the authors identify the ways their
experiences can be codesigned in an accessible way and combined skill sets enabled them to raise awareness about
the sustainability of this approach. The intervention will this collection by melting traditional academic research
present findings from initial feasibility studies with with innovative digital technologies.
students, and how these findings will impact the approach
taken in the main study, to be conducted with participants DANI PLOEGER
who have experienced homelessness. It will be analyzed (University of London)
what these studies mean for how technology is used in Revolution Refridge: Domestic Technology for Democratic Futures.
future workshops and what further resources are needed.
The potential of 360-degree film applied as technology in Revolution Refridge is a project by the Rojava Center for
the research will be discussed in terms of a local heritage Democratic Technologies. It is a cooperation between
medium. The presentation of the research’s initial outcome artists and engineers to develop a low-cost, energy-
will underline the temporal quality of the immersive media efficient refrigerator that responds to local cultural,
narratives created, and reflect on how these stories could environmental, and economic conditions in North-East
contribute to local heritage and understanding of place. Syria. Drawing from the Rojava Revolution principles of
The intervention will also analyze how personal stories self-reliance, communalist anti-capitalism, and ecology,
can be expressed in this medium and how the narrative the fridge takes its starting point from sci-fi imaginaries
structure changes in relation to the viewers’ experience of that are rooted in local and regional traditions and
immersive media. heritage.

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TUESDAY - 12/9/2023 (ROOM S3– ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 10.30-12-00

PANEL 2: RE-ENACTMENT
CHAIR: GABRIELLA GIANNACHI (UNIVERSITY OF EXETER)

FEDERICA VACCA, ANGELICA VANDI IRENE CALVI

(Politecnico di Milano, School of Design) (Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna)
Digital Curatorship Practices for Fashion Heritage Experience. New Technologies in Fashion Museums: Tools to Enhance Audience
Interaction.
Fashion corporate archives are considered engines of
innovation and active culture resources for contemporary Museums are experimenting with new digital strategies for
forms of branded communication, yet continuously displaying fashion heritage. Fashion and textile museums
integrated into the company’s production and design are dealing with the representation of several cultural
process and construction. Companies’ owned archives identities, rich anthropological heritage, brands, and
have always displayed and collected objects like products, manufacturers’ histories, but especially they can
visuals, photographs, and prototypes in in-house, investigate the complex relation between the body and
museum-like settings to illustrate the history of the how we chose to adorn it over time. Therefore,
company itself and its operations to employees, customers, technologies are the means to reach a wider and deeper
or other visitors, especially for public relations and participation from the public, to promote a wider range of
marketing strategies, without completely disclosing and themes, and to raise awareness on the intersections
disseminating them to wider publics due to competition between our tangible and intangible dress and textile
and intellectual property reasons. This paper aims to heritage. The presentation will focus on the importance of
provide an overview of the relationship between design the hybrid experience to both visit in person the institution
and curatorship – especially when dealing with digital and engage with familiar technologies to enhance people’s
curatorship – for the creation of immersive online interaction and learning. Two case studies will be the main
experiences for fashion brands. Considerations on future thread to investigate this approach: on one side Fashion for
trajectories will be outlined based on existing digital Good, a recently opened museum in Amsterdam, aims to
valorization practices of fashion cultural heritage driven involve the visitors to take action through a digital journey
by companies’ communication and information retrieval while telling the stories behind clothes, materials, and the
strategies. fashion industry. On the other side is the MoMu, the
established Fashion Museum in Antwerp, which in 2015
BEGOÑA FARRÉ TORRAS introduced the Touch Wall, a tool to present the entire
(Universidade NOVA de Lisboa) digitized collection and enhance the visitor’s journey.
The Modernist Mural in Europe: An Untold Story – Digital
Curatorship Challenges and Opportunities. NOEMI IGLESIAS BARRIOS
(Faculty of Fine Arts ULisboa; CIEBA-VICARTE Research
Mural paintings, produced by both well-known and lesser Group)
figures of the avant-garde, remain a largely underexplored Technoceramics, Mining the Urban Landscape.
part of Europe's modernist heritage (unlike their
counterparts in Latin America and the US, where muralism A techno-ceramic object is a reference fossil from modern
has long been central to the narrative of modernism and society, conceived to explore possible forms of geo-
the avant-gardes). Originally commissioned by a variety of subjectivities, applying respectful actions towards natural
patrons, they are key to understanding the history of 220th- resources in the creation of ceramic objects. The
century art from a social perspective. However, having methodology focuses on procedures involved in the
mostly been created indoors as an intrinsic part of a recycling and re-use of pre-extracted minerals like cobalt
building, those murals that have survived demolitions and that are found in our obsolete electronic devices to obtain
refurbishments are today often found in sites with limited the necessary information, raw material, and skills to
or no public access. Historical attempts at bringing these develop insights into the prospects of sustainable ceramic
monumental artworks into exhibition circuits have artifacts. As a lithic testimony of our digital lifestyle, this
inevitably been costly, logistically complex operations. The techno-ceramic proposal aims to respond concisely to the
paper will focus primarily on immersive curatorial environmental questions that arise from our current
strategies, including visuals and sound, given that a priori technological era.
they offer the greatest potential to (re)create the spatial
and collective reception conditions of the original works.
The discussion will also address the issues of curatorial
concern and historical accuracy raised by the use of such
immersive strategies.

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PANEL 3: OPERA
CHAIR: GIACOMO ALBERT (UNIVERSITÀ DI TORINO

GIULIA CARLUCCIO*, STEFANIA RIMINI**

(*Università di Torino; **Università degli Studi di Catania)
Reinventing and Relocating Opera Digital Creativity and Opera
Heritage in the Intermedia Project by Davide Livermore and D-Wok.

From the systematic hybridization of imaginaries to stage

reworking through digital technologies, the reinvention
path of operatic heritage carried out by Davide
Livermore’s direction and D-Wok’s video and virtual
design appears today as an ecosystem project requiring
the overcoming of boundaries of theatrical space itself. NICOL ODDO
From Ciro in Babilonia at Rossini Opera Festival (2012) to (Università degli Studi di Catania)
Don Pasquale at La Scala (2018); from Attila (2018) to Green Screens, Video Projections and Steady Cams: The Use of Digital
Macbeth (2021), again at La Scala; from Aida at Sidney Technology in Damiano Michieletto's Opera Productions.
Opera House (2018) to Aida at Teatro dell’ Opera di Roma
(2023), the project emerging is one of progressive This contribution aims to highlight some technological
experimentation of intermedia expansion of Opera hybridizations present in the operatic works of the stage
boundaries, with the intention of updating its cultural director Damiano Michieletto and his creative team and to
legacy and making it contemporary. Within this process, identify a taxonomy based on dramaturgical intentions.
through the increasing, as well as conscious, use of digital Some recent stagings will be taken as case studies
technologies, it has been possible to relocate almost including Aquagranda (Teatro La Fenice, 2015), La
naturally the Opera in the cross-television space of A damnation de Faust (Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, 2018), A
riveder le stelle (2020), shot and produced during the Midsummer night's dream (Theater an der Wien, 2018),
lockdown. Similarly, the cinematographic project of The Béatrice et Bénédict (Opéra Nouvel de Lyon, 2021), and
Opera! has been put in place, involving the production of a Rigoletto (Amsterdam National Theatre, 2017 and Rome's
Kolossal summoning virtual reality in order to “launch” the Circo Massimo, 2020) to analyze the implications of
memory of Opera into the future. Through specific case technology on operatic narratives and Michieletto's
analyses, the paper will explore the question of the stylistic figure within the "space of flows" (Monteverdi
construction of the intermedia project by Livermore/D- 2020) in contemporary opera.
Wok, focusing on the use of new technologies and the need
to open up to different media to update contemporary LAURA PERNICE
opera. (Università degli Studi di Catania)
The Digital Upgrade of Opera Theatre: Intermedial Dramaturgies and
IVAN PARATI
Technological Visualities in Fanny & Alexander’s Spectacles.
(XJTLU)
Tradition Upgraded, Performance and Craft Redefined Through
Always bound to forms of “intermedial dramaturgy” (Del
Innovation.
Gaudio 2020), the company Fanny & Alexander (Luigi De
Angelis and Chiara Lagani) has started a new directorial
The paper presents the process behind redesigning a Kun path in the field of Opera since 2015. By applying a
Qu Chinese opera traditional costume, innovated through methodological approach that catches the intermedial
the unusual joint effort among digital and traditional dimension of stagings according to the epistemological
manufacturing techniques, intending to revive the interest premises of Digital Performance (Giannachi 2004, Dixon
of a younger audience in the traditional cultural heritage. 2007, Kattenbelt 2008, Salter 2010) and the lines research
The intervention described is part of the collaborative of Opera Studies (Hutcheon 2006, Levin 2007, Till 2012,
framework of the Shuangta Project, established by Gusu Guccini 2016), the intervention aims to illustrate the scenic
Planning Bureau and XJTLU Design School to foster and visual innovations of four specific case studies: Il flauto
regeneration projects and realize participatory planning in magico (2015), Orfeo nel metrò (2019), L’isola disabitata
Suzhou, the most populous city in Jiangsu, in the Yangtze (2021), Il ritorno di Ulisse in patria (2022).
River Delta region, part of the Greater Shanghai metro
area.

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PANEL 4: ARCHEOLOGY
CHAIR: ANDREA BALBO (UNIVERSITÀ DI TORINO)

RUI FILIPE ANTUNES WILLEKE WENDRICH

(CICANT - Universidade Lusófona) (University of California)
Virtual Characters and Virtual Reality in Reconstructions of Ancient Digital Nubia: Engaged Archaeology in a Drowned Landscape.
Sites: The Case of Medieval Silves.
The history and cultural memory of the Nubian peoples
This paper describes a virtual reality experiment of a 3D focus on the river Nile, which has always been a steady, yet
reconstruction of an ancient site inhabited by virtual fluctuating presence in their lives before the move to what
characters. It is the simulation of a neighborhood of Xilb was called by the Egyptian government "New Nubia" and
(or Xelb), in the 10th century, when this city, today south by the present generation Nubia tahgir ("displacement
of Portugal, was an important center of Al-Andalous. The Nubia"). Digital Nubia is a long-term project to step-by-
simulation resulted from excavations of the foundations of step recreate a three-dimensional VR environment of the
a modern block of apartment buildings, when, outside the Nubian landscape and the ancient, as well as historical
protective wall, eleven houses were discovered by the buildings present before the flooding of the region. The
archaeological team led by Silves municipality. The Silves purpose of the project is to use the 3DVR landscape as a
Museum provided us with archaeological information, and locus for memories, partly helped by the visual
with the help of students from Lisbon University, we made representation, and as a means to connect publications,
the effort to create this simulation. This 3D architectural descriptions, and imagery to a place within that virtual
and urban reconstruction was inhabited by a population of landscape.
virtual inhabitants dressed in historical accuracy, who,
through artificial intelligence, roam the space SUSANNE ÅDAHL, TOMAS TRÄSKMAN
autonomously and interact with each other in real-time. (Arcada University of Applied Sciences)
Archeologies of Future Heritage: Research-Creations for Imagining
ANASTASIOS MARAGIANNIS Emerging Digital Technology in Museums.
(University of Greenwich)
Fostering Social Cohesion and Cultural Sustainability: Political What types of digital technologies do young adults imagine
Engagement, and Inclusive Design through the Ancient Greek Heritage. to be in use in the museums of the future? The paper will
present a series of workshops developed with students on
Social cohesion, inclusion, and cultural sustainability are speculative imaginaries created around the futures of
crucial factors in developing societies. These fundamentals digital tools and the museum environments they will be
can be fostered through various political engagements and used in. Taking inspiration from the work by Deborah
broader participation. This paper will examine the ancient Lupton and Ash Watson (2022; 2020), creative writing
world, focusing on Greek heritage and how dialogue with prompts were designed and applied by the students to
notions such as ancient and modern citizenship and elicit data on how they imagine emerging digital
accessibility can influence current societies such as technology in museums of the future. They also enacted
economic players and creative industries. Desouza and gamified mobile applications as a form of material prompt.
Bhagwatwar (2015) referred to this with a focus on four On a conceptual level, the aim of the project was to explore
main archetypes: citizen-centric, citizen data, and how youth make sense of new technologies; how they
government data. Sanoff (2008) discussed how the engage in digital materiality that, in its turn, shapes
simultaneous involvement of aesthetic variables and embodied cognition. A creative approach to the
economic, social and environmental objectives in design investigation falls under the banner of ‘new empiricisms’
can be challenging to be implemented and interpret within (Lupton and Watson 2022, Roussell 2020). By bringing
a digital heritage context. Other studies (Sneed, 2017) together the literature of sociomateriality, co-design, and
suggested that several examples exist. In these terms, the the method of ‘research-creations’, the purpose was to
intervention will explore how modern institutions can better understand how youth imagine, think, and enact
learn from the past to develop a strong engagement with technology in their everyday life, but also to investigate
their cultural heritage regarding social awareness and how they come to sense, feel, and live with sociotechnical
economic exploitation. imaginaries.

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TUESDAY - 12/9/2023 (ROOM S7– ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 10.30-12-00

PANEL 5: DANCE
CHAIR: LETIZIA GIOIA MONDA (UNIVERSITÀ DI TORINO)

AURÉLIEN BELLUCCI
(Harvard University)
Online Performances & Intercontinental Politics.
ARIADNE MIKOU
As a result of close reading, performance analysis, and (Independent Scholar)
interviews, the paper will explore Chung Siu Hei’s In Live Performing Arts and Documentation: Immersive Technologies &
Search of Our Common Ground within a longer tradition of Sustainability.
Chinese political theater, which started with Put Down
Your Whip in 1931 and other street plays, or "jietouju," that This paper aims to explore the practice of documentation
sought audience involvement. The objective is not only to in relation to performing arts – more specifically dance and
shed new light on the Hong Kong events through original, choreography – and immersive technologies, in particular
artistic material that is often overlooked by the social virtual reality (VR). Beginning with the premises of
sciences, but also to show how it speaks to other political circular economy and cooperation, this paper focuses on
performances happening elsewhere in the world today, Springback Ringside, a project that has already opened the
particularly Indian people’s theater, or "log natak," or path to explore the potential of VR technology in the
political plays from Europe in the traditions of both Bertolt documentation of performing arts. More specifically,
Brecht and French "théâtre populaire." Ultimately, by Springback Ringside is one of the brainchilds of
paying particular attention to online audiences' Aerowaves, a European dance network that promotes
involvement, the intervention will observe how a hybrid, contemporary dance across Europe through festival co-
interactive performance à la Chung Siu Hei may offer an operations and it includes a rich and worth-noticing
alternative to contemporary political thought and action. archive of dance creations by emerging European artists.
As a pilot program supported by the EU-funded project
MICHELE DIAS AUGUSTO Perform Europe, Springback Ringside experiments with
(Universidade de Lisboa) the documentation of 11 choreographic works through VR
Inês de Castro in Scenic and Performative Visions: Studies on the technology with the aim to promote a sustainable cross-
Digital Collection of the National Museum of Theater and Dance of border touring of these works especially in rural areas.
Portugal. Through this lens, Springback Ringside leads the way for
an exploration of practices considered until now relatively
The communication intends to present an analysis of the disconnected in the field of performing arts in a European
sensitive journey in the National Museum of Theater and context: creation and fruition of virtual heritage, audience
Dance of Portugal (MNTD) digital collection content. development and inclusion, promotion of contemporary
Namely, the visions of Inês de Castro, a study of the dance artists and sustainable touring of their
costume design creations by various artists in productions choreographic works through VR technology.
by Portuguese theatrical and ballet companies between Furthermore, Springback Ringside experiments with an
the 1940s and 1970s. Her interpretations and particular innovative way of documenting dance by addressing issues
concepts about the visuality of the story and characters are of conventional audio-visual representations and offers
transported through the traces of the costumes designed immediate valorization and dissemination of the produced
in productions by the Verde Gaio Company, the Gulbenkian archive. By analyzing the specific case study of the
Ballet Group, Teatro do Povo, Rey Colaço Robles Monteiro Springback Ringside project, what new challenges or
Company; and through the work of costume designers possibilities may immersive technologies bring into the
such as José Barbosa, Abílio de Mattos e Silva, Artur Casais, field of performing arts documentation – that has long
among others. The paper aims to present the conjectures been in tension with the live event and still divides
related to the artistic research process, in manual and opinions regarding its value in relation to the live
digital types, entitled O Não-Casamento de Inês de Castro, performance? What may VR technology offer to the
on display at the National Museum of Costume, Portugal, “afterlife” of a live work?
based on the love story representations in the memory of
the performances and ballets set of the Museum.

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TUESDAY - 12/9/2023 (ROOM S8– ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 10.30-12-00 a.m.

PANEL 6: ENVIRONMENT
CHAIR: ROSA TAMBORRINO (POLITECNICO DI TORINO)

CLAIRE BAILEY-ROSS, ARGENIS RAMIREZ GOMEZ YI ZHANG*, ZHI YE**, MANSU WANG*
(University of Portsmouth) (*Politecnico di Milano; **King's College London)
Embodied Interaction on a Boat. Designing Immersive Museum and Exhibiting the Future Anthropocene: The Multiple Roles of Design in
Heritage Playful Experiences the Post-human Narrative of the Museum.

What happens when a museum invites non-visitors to co- To some extent, digital technology has revitalized and
create and play immersive games for and about museum illuminated museums, giving them a new lease of life and a
objects? This paper explores merging embodied valuable opportunity to engage with the public in
interaction, machine learning and extended reality to unprecedented ways (Keitel, 2012). The museums,
develop a playful, open, and immersive museum liberated from the constraints of their original image as
experience…on a boat. Landing Craft Tank LCT 7074 is the treasure-keeper or sacred temples of knowledge, with the
last surviving Landing Craft Tank (LCT) from D-Day, it support of technology, aim to reshape cultural heritage in
played a vital role in transporting men and supplies across innovative ways, endow exhibits with more diverse
the English Channel. After it was retired, LCT 7074 was meanings and offer opportunities for deeper public
turned into a 1970s floating nightclub and eventually fell engagement (Janes & Sandell, 2019). Instead of collecting
into disrepair and sank. Can this curious object biography natural or artificial objects, some museums have taken to
be combined with immersive technology to reach out to displaying things that can be found everywhere in daily life
and engage with under-represented audiences to describe contemporary history and discuss a future
disconnected with 20th Century History? The paper Anthropocene that does not yet exist (Spiers et al., 2022).
explores how AI-enhanced immersive gameplay This study aims to broaden the horizon and take an
experiences can be housed within a historical object and epistemological approach to explore the reasons,
whether or not it can draw in audiences who currently do purposes, and needs for the rise of Post-Anthropocene
not visit museums. It discusses how to establish narratives and to focus on its influences in museums in the
meaningful links between historical objects and embodied social context. It observes and analyses the multiple roles
interaction, and how to co-design experiences and that design performs in knowledge generation, content
engagement by and for new audiences using immersive presentation, and interactive experiences.
and innovative technologies.
ANJA BOATO
ARGENIS RAMIREZ GOMEZ, CLAIRE BAILEY-ROSS (La Sapienza Università di Roma)
(University of Portsmouth) Physical Spaces for Virtual Realities. Distribution and Legitimacy of
Should Holograms Be Displayed Next to Paper Mache Models? Immersive Social Documentaries.
Reflections on the Conflict of the Pre-Digital and the Post-Digital
Museum. The paper aims to investigate the role of Virtual Reality
social documentaries within spaces of cultural legitimacy.
This paper reflects on the development of a low-cost It will describe the landscape of VR documentaries
holographic display portraying digital scans of taxidermy presented in festivals between 2019 and 2023, taking into
artifacts, and using animation and motion capture consideration ten of the leading festivals dedicated to
technology to bring the museum collection to life in an Extended Realities in the world. Then, it will analyze the
interactive experience. The intervention describes the complicated relationship between interactive
‘HoloRoom’, an interactive artifact designed to facilitate documentaries, information, and the fictional dimension of
audience engagement with novel interfaces and the animated and immersive storytelling. Finally, it will take
digitalization of Portsmouth’s Cumberland House Natural into consideration the case studies of The Key (Tricart
History Museum store artifacts. A dynamic display of the 2019) and All unsaved progress will be lost (Courtinat
artifacts’ 3D digital models was deployed at the museum. 2022), two immersive social documentaries included in
In parallel, the ‘HoloRoom’ concept was applied to the circuit of festivals and other places of cultural
showcase an interactive experience leveraging real-time legitimacy.
motion-capturing and Wizard-of-Oz performative
methods to animate a conversational holographic animal
that engaged with visitors via voice interaction, creating
narratives around the museum’s collection.

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 Performing Cultural Heritage in the Digital Present - DRHA Conference 2023 | BOOK OF ABSTRACTS

Tuesday 12 September 2023

(AUDITORIUM--ALDO MORO COMPLEX-- 3.00-4.00 PM)

Keynote Presentation
By

MATT ADAMS
(Blast Theory)

Matt Adams co-founded Blast Theory in 1991, an artists’ group making interactive work. Blast
Theory is renowned for its multidisciplinary approach using new technologies in theatre,
games and visual art. The group has collaborated with scientists at the Mixed Reality Lab at the
University of Nottingham since 1997.
Blast Theory has shown Ulrike and Eamon Compliant at the Venice Biennale, A Machine To See
With at Sundance Film Festival and Can You See Me Now? at Tate Britain. Commissioners
include Channel 4, National Theatre Wales and the Royal Opera House. Awards include the
Golden Nica at Prix Ars Electronica, the Nam June Paik Art Center Award and four BAFTA
nominations.
Matt has curated at Tate Modern and at the ICA in London and has taught widely. He has
lectured at Stanford University, the Royal College of Art and the Sorbonne. With Ju Row Farr
and Nick Tandavanitj, he is a winner of the Maverick Award at the Game Developers Choice
Awards, was a Thinker In Residence for the South Australian Government and was an inaugural
Artist In Residence at the World Health Organization in Geneva in 2018. Matt served on the
Southeast Regional Council of Arts Council England from 2012 to 2019. He was the Visiting
Professor in Interactive Media at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama from 2007 to
2014. He is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Exeter.

Introduced by
ANTONIO PIZZO
(Università di Torino)
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 Performing Cultural Heritage in the Digital Present - DRHA Conference 2023 | BOOK OF ABSTRACTS

Tuesday 12 September 2023

(ALDO MORO COMPLEX)

Parallel Sessions in the Afternoon

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TUESDAY - 12/9/2023 (ROOM S2– ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 4.30-6-00 p.m.

PANEL 1: CONSERVATION
CHAIR: ROBERTA SAPINO (UNIVERSITÀ DI TORINO)

ARIANNA MECOZZI, MARCO CORNAGLIA FRANCESCA FABBRI, FEDERICA COLLINA

(Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna) (Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna)
GIS Multimedia Atlases for the Conservation and the Memory of the Digital Valorization of Cultural Memories: Three Case Studies in the
Coastal Environment in the Area of Ravenna. Emilia-Romagna Region.

This communication suggests the creation of several Cultural heritage, whether tangible or intangible, is the
multimedia maps, for a digital atlas of Emilia-Romagna, medium through which a community has a way of
with particular attention to the area of Ravenna. This atlas, representing itself. Its memory transmitted over the years
created through GIS software, will allow evaluating the is communicated through the lens of contemporaneity. In
centuries-old evolution of the relation between man and valorization processes, whether they are developed top-
sea in this area, both on the historical-cultural plane and down or bottom-up, a reflection on the values to be
on the strictly environmental one. The GIS will be therefore transmitted is necessary. In this context, digital media have
used also in order to reconstruct the ancient coastline and for several years been an aid for the creation and
its evolution, thus allowing to assess and recreating on the visualization of semantic connections, otherwise not
digital map the changes of the local coastline over the communicable in the more traditional analog modes.
millennia, and whether these changes were either the Based on this reflection, the paper presents three projects
product of natural processes or were instead caused by based on three different realities in Emilia Romagna
man. The resulting atlas will provide the means to not only equally linked to the territory. These projects aim to
recreate the local territory, but also to represent the communicate the cultural, artistic, and architectural
human connections over the centuries, both Inside the heritage they contain using digital technologies for an
local area and in the broader context of the Mediterranean effective and engaging narration. The three case studies
Sea, in order to communicate and facilitate the requested different digital storytelling methodologies in
reutilization, green regeneration, conservation and order to accomplish the valorization of their cultural
transmission of the cultural memory of these sites. heritages in close relationships with the community of
reference. The transmission of these heritages through ICT
MARCO CORNAGLIA, ARIANNA MECOZZI is aimed at the collective recognition of their value as well
(Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna) as triggering a common consciousness.
The REMEMBER Project - Protection and Enhancement of the
Maritime Heritage of Ravenna. MELISSA MACALUSO
(Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna)
Sustainability, zero emissions, requalification, L’Arca di San Domenico Digital: A Digital Tool for the Enhancement
regeneration and reutilization, and innovative of Religious Cultural Heritage.
technologies are the focus that currently stimulates the
cultural debate regarding both urban and architectural The enhancement of religious cultural heritage in its
environmental themes. In this context, in observance of original context is a complex issue and deserves specific
section 11 of the 2030 schedule, several limits of a mass attention. These assets address two types of audience, a
tourism system that creates situations of over-tourism strictly religious one which ‘uses’ them for prayer, and a
every year were highlighted. This phenomenon causes the more lay public which is more interested in what the assets
overcrowding of historic centers and issues in the use of represent from a historical-artistic point of view. ‘Squaring
cultural heritage, while at the same time, new challenges the circle’ in this situation is not easy because it is required
tied to heritage preservation arise. The necessity of to balance the demands of conservation and mediation and
communicating and valorizing potential secondary tourist the needs of worship. In this context, if used properly, the
routes, such as peripheric areas and landscape heritage, digital environment may represent the most effective tool
has stimulated the search for new methodologies for the in guaranteeing a good transmission of the historical-
narration of cultural heritage. Finding innovative artistic contents without impacting the spiritual dimension
approaches allows rebuilding a collective identity based on of the work by excessively ‘musealising’ the religious space
history, tradition, and territory in contexts particularly in which it is located. The paper will consider the Arca di
rich in immaterial and identity heritage difficult to San Domenico preserved in the Basilica di San Domenico
communicate. Contextualized in the city of Ravenna, where of Bologna as a case of study. Moreover, the website
more than eight UNESCO sites are placed, the paper will prototype “L’Arca di San Domenico Digital” for its digital
present the tasks performed as part of the REMEMBER enhancement will be presented.
project.

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TUESDAY - 12/9/2023 (ROOM S3– ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 4.30-6-00 p.m.

PANEL 2: DIGITAL ENGAGEMENT

CHAIR: RICCARDO FASSONE (UNIVERSITÀ DI TORINO)

LARA PERSKI, RENATE BUSCHMANN MARTA HERRERO, JONATHAN HOOK, GUY SCHOFIELD, TOBIAS
(Witten/Herdecke University) PALMA STADE*, ZULFIYA HAMZAKI
Orchestra in Digital Transformation: Expanding Perceptual (School of Arts and Creative Technologies, University of York;
Possibilities of Classical Music with a Hybrid Performance Format. *London College of Communications, University of the Arts
London)
Especially with classical music, the spatial arrangement of Contemporary Archaeology and Virtual Reality Storytelling:
musicians in relation to each other as well as to the Promoting Audience Engagement and Fundraising for the Council for
audience has been rather static and one-sided, meaning British Archaeology.
that audience members are only ever (mostly sedentary)
listeners and never active participants. A multimedia The project took place in 2022 in a collaboration between
performance practice conceived by the German artist duo the University of York and the Council for British
Michalis Nicolaides (video artist) and Frederike Möller Archaeology. Its main aim was to support the CBA’s
(pianist) breaks with this convention by inviting the adoption of VR storytelling in its fundraising and public
musicians to play in separate rooms while being connected engagement activities. The specific research aims were
to each other and to the conductor via digital equipment. twofold: to test the proposition that VR films may lead to
This paper will analyze the transformative as well as added benefits for the CBA, such as an increase in
aesthetic potential of this format. As the authors have acted volunteering, donations, and/or membership, and, more
as curators for one such concert (in Fall 2022), it will broadly; to critically investigate the barriers and
provide more than a formal analysis of the performance opportunities that nonprofits may experience when
practice but also elaborate on the collaborative and adopting new technologies such as VR storytelling. The
interdisciplinary process of its site-specific execution. The presentation is divided into three parts. Firstly, it will
evaluation of the artists’ approach will also acknowledge present the project’s methodology based on the principle
the perspectives of the participating musicians as well as of co-creation. Secondly, it will detail the process of
audience feedback gathered in a comprehensive survey filmmaking, production, and post-production of VR films.
conducted directly after the concert. Lastly, it will explore Thirdly, it will conclude by assessing, based on data
the ways in which this hybrid concert format is of collected at a post-production stage, the challenges and
particular interest to cultural and teaching institutions. opportunities VR storytelling poses for nonprofits seeking
to build a successful business case for digital investment.
LIAM JEFFERIES
(Leeds Beckett University) CRISTIANE MENEZES, ABHISHEK CHATTERJEE, NUNO DIAS,
Engaged or not Engaged, that is the question: The impact of Duality on VASCO BRANCO
the Participatory Experience of Augmented Reality Interventions in (University of Aveiro)
Cultural Spaces. Connecting Threads: Exploring Digital Tools as Scaffolding for
Heritage Management and Activation.
The fundamental power of Augmented Reality is its ability
to utilize both physical and digital contexts to co-create This paper will introduce a design-led cultural research
meaning at their confluence and deliver experiences that and heritage mediation that is currently under
are greater than the sum of their parts. This paper seeks to implementation in a rural setting in north-central Portugal,
examine the theoretical and practical implications of the which involves the rescue and reinstatement of an ancient
relationship between the physical and digital, and offer tradition of linen-making. In this regard, the intervention
insight into how their interaction can impact, both will detail the framework within which the affordances of
positively and negatively, the engaged experience of contemporary technology are being leveraged: necessarily
participants in cultural spaces. Developing a framework to towards the documentation of the related activities, tools,
conceptualize and examine this relationship, referred to and externalities for future reference, but more
here as Duality. The development of the concept of Duality, importantly, also for scaffolding research actions aimed at
in the context of Augmented Reality is the first concern community building. The cycle of linen-making in the
here. Exploring the writing of Manuel Castells, Lev mentioned context is an agricultural process that has
Manovich, Ronald Azuma, and Guy Debord, amongst existed across several millennia throughout continental
others, to interrogate the varied and contrasting Portugal, wherein regional specificities, both climatic and
perspectives on the relationship between the physical and processual, have contributed with cultural diversity to the
digital, the space for flows, and the space of places, and overarching industrial/sectoral discourse.
their impact upon experience.

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TUESDAY - 12/9/2023 (ROOM S4– ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 4.30-6-00 p.m.

PANEL 3: MIXED REALITY HERITAGE PERFORMANCES

CHAIR: SUSAN BROADHURST (BRUNEL UNIVERSITY)

HOLLY MAPLES DOMINIQUE BOUCHARD

(University of Essex) (English Heritage)
Animating the Archive: Theatrical Techniques in Mixed Reality Co-Curation, Co-Production and Immersive Technologies in
Immersive Heritage Performance. Decolonial Heritage Practice: Embracing Authenticity and Risk.

‘Designing Mixed Reality Heritage Performances to Radically, the Mixed Reality project engaged a youth panel
Support Decolonisation of Heritage Sites’, is a collaborative as paid consultants to help challenge, inform, and engage
research project to create two Augmented Reality and Live with both the museological methodologies under
Immersive Performance projects in heritage sites at development as well as the interpretation of the colonial
Historic Deerfield, Massachusetts, and Marble Hill House in narratives being explored in the theatrical piece. The
London. This paper will examine the intersection of live potential of immersive digital technologies in empowering
performance with digital design through Mixed Reality
audiences and curating affective experiences is an
Hololens to decentre and contextualize the history of the
emerging area of museological practice. This paper
heritage site with the wider context of the 18 th-century
transatlantic slave trade. The paper will explore the explores how digital heritage performance can aid heritage
different creative challenges and opportunities provided sites in their endeavor to attract new audiences while
by each heritage site. It will include audience and actor critically engaging the public with under-represented
observations and feedback from a first performance, Jin’s voices and viewpoints of contested and difficult histories.
Dream, performed in May 2023 at Historic Deerfield. It examines how institutional strategies around audience
Furthermore, the talk will handle the design and development and learning can provide opportunities to
development work for a second performance, involve communities in co-creative and co-production.
titled Sancho’s Journey. While these practices have previously been considered
risks to authenticity and institutional expertise, this paper
MARIZA DIMA will offer a new risk framework in which these practices
(Brunel University) are essential strategies for risk mitigation, helping to align
Emerging Design Processes for Mixed Reality Heritage Performances. the aims of communities with heritage practitioners which
are sometimes framed as being at odds with each other.
As part of the three-paper panel focusing on different
aspects of creating world-first Mixed Reality Heritage HARMONY BENCH*, KATE ELSWIT**
Performances, this paper outlines and discusses the first (*The Ohio State University; **University of London)
insights from designing 'Jin's Dream', a fusion of Mixed
Motion Data and Bodily Archives: Dance History as Dance Heritage?
Reality and live participatory theatre experience that told
the stories of enslaved Africans in the historic village of
Deerfield, Massachusetts in the 18th century, with How are digital tools usefully employed in the context of
references to the triangular trade. In particular, the talk analyzing theatrical dance histories, heritage, and
will focus on a new type of theatre script, online legacies? The negotiation between tangible and intangible
production processes, actor control through Internet of cultural heritage is central to the representation and
Things sensors, and affective design of an embodied understanding of how dance practices have been
experience guided by the synchronicity between acting materially embodied in the past, especially when
and Mixed Reality content. A first set of recommendations approached from the perspective of a data-led inquiry.
for similar projects will be presented and linked to the This talk will begin with a brief introduction to the
other two papers to offer a holistic overview of the project researchers’ earlier collaborations exploring print
outcomes and to present the opportunities of Mixed archives for the purposes of curating, analyzing, and
Reality Heritage Performance as a decolonising/repairing
visualizing dance historical datasets, before turning
tool.
toward more recent experimentations with historical
motion data. The presentation will focus in particular on
research strands conducted in partnership with the
Institute for Dunham Technique Certification and the
Advanced Center for Computing in Art and Design at The
Ohio State Unive

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TUESDAY - 12/9/2023 (ROOM S6– ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 4.30-6-00 p.m.

PANEL 4: ROBOTICS, PERFORMANCE, ARCHEOLOGY

CHAIR: ANTONIO PIZZO (UNIVERSITÀ DI TORINO)

GORAN ĐURIĆ
(University of Melbourne)
Dramaturgies of Priming: An Affective Politics of Stone-Robot
Encounters.

In the plains of Senegambia, the locals visit ancient ALEKSANDRA MICHALEWICZ

standing stone sites in anticipation of a transformative (University of Melbourne)
experience. They are seen hugging the stones, sensing their Standing Stones, Swarming Robots: Mediating Global Cultural
presence through corporeal, affective registers that Heritage for Audiences through Digital Archaeology.
articulate aspects of human experience that are often
considered imperceptible. Ancient standing stones Archaeology, the art and science of understanding the
mobilize a range of emotions, desires, and affordances: human past, necessarily embraces emerging technologies;
they are comforting, healing, and even restorative. indeed, it is impossible to practice archaeology without the
Opportunities for such embodied forms of heritage use of new tools and methods. For three years a collective
experience beyond observational modes in gallery settings of researchers from the seemingly disparate disciplines of
remain rare. This paper examines the affective potential of archaeology, robotics, and performance studies has
priming, a dramaturgical approach we employed in worked to produce the interactive installation, Sacrifice.
Sacrifice, a radical collaboration between theatre makers, One outcome of our work was the nesting of the physical
roboticists, and archaeologists that invited audiences to and digital: from the materiality of the original standing
engage with a swarm of synthetic standing stones through stones to their corresponding digital images and resultant
embodied encounters. By reflecting on the dramaturgical photogrammetry, to the physical production of carapaces
strategies adopted in this immersive performance, the which focused on materiality and tactility. Staging Sacrifice
focus is on the approaches used to encourage visitors to in a settler-colonial country such as Australia necessarily
engage with the stone-like objects and earn their trust. The provoked reflection on the meaning of sacrifice, who
notion of affect as an attachment – proposed by Eve sacrifices and how, and what it is that is sacrificed. We
Sedgwick in her discussion of transformative effect – will discovered methodological tensions which led us to
be applied to argue that visual and aural priming, our question what concessions and compromises had to be
“doing of heritage,” evoked audiences’ affective made to archaeological practices and understanding. This
attachment to the objects they perceived as cultural led us to reconsider what insights archaeology can offer
heritage, resulting in embodied experiences resembling about human culture and the design of contemporary
those observed at actual standing stones sites. technologies. Our research has demonstrated that the
installation elicits diverse and divergent responses to our
ELENA MARIE VELLA simulated stone site, the stones, and their movements, and
(University of Melbourne) provoked multivocal interpretation and imagination about
Human-Robot-Swarm Collaboration: Learning to Interact with cultural memory and global cultural heritage.
Autonomous Systems Through Movement.
ROBERT WALTON
Connecting robotics and art experiences provoke (University of Melbourne)
challenging research interpretation problems requiring Inventing the Stone-Robot and Directing a Swarm Ensemble.
the unification of subjective and objective modes of
analysis. Robotic systems excel under strict and clear This paper reflects on the invention of the “stone-robot”
performance metrics, whereas makers of artistic and what happens when a swarm of them is encountered
performance are often open to multiple interpretations of by an audience member during an art experience. It steps
success. This paper reflects on our team’s shifts in through the thinking behind a recent staging of this hybrid
perspectives as artists and engineers developing human- technology and evaluates directorial decisions through
robot-swarm interactions through an immersive multi-modal analyses of audience behavior and reported
performance installation. We began connecting robotic responses. This paper outlines how the performance
and artistic performance by examining the theme of artwork Sacrifice might serve as a speculative “theatre of
collaborative interaction. We considered what it means for artificial intelligence” for rehearsing future modes of life
a group of robots functioning as a swarm to interact with interwoven with ubiquitous computation and autonomous
an untrained human (here, an audience member) by synthetic agents.
focusing on human and machine perception of movement
in an immersive theatrical environment.

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TUESDAY - 12/9/2023 (ROOM S7– ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 4.30-6-00 p.m.

PANEL 5: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & METAVERSE

CHAIR: SIMONE NATALE (UNIVERSITÀ DI TORINO)

ADA XIAOYU HAO*, JOAN GAVALER** FEDERICA PATTI

(*University of Brighton/Camberwell College of Art, University (Università di Torino)
of Arts London; **College of William & Mary) The Fifth Wall. Liveness on Metaverse.
Playing Exquisite Corpse with Human and Artificial Intelligence:
Explore the Potential of Hyper-Authorship in Forging Translocal and The rise of the Metaverse represents a fundamental shift in
Digital Heritage with the Synthetic Use of Language, Digital today's notion of digital presence, towards mass
Technology, AI, and the Human Body. interconnectedness, universal interoperability, and
persistent synchronicity. Populating decentralized VR
This paper gives advances on ‘Hyper-Corpse’ - a new environments, the user experience of art (UXA) reshapes
nomadic dance-technology curatorial lab founded by Aura and situates the emergence of 'Metaverse-native' art in
Curiatalas (US) and PAPRIKA Collective (UK) that connects adjacent fields such as gaming, blockchain, sandbox and
artists, dancers, and scientists from diverse backgrounds open-world games, and online 3D collaboration platforms
to collaborate as equals in the hybrid ways of making and (Unity, Mozilla Hubs, Unreal Engine: perfect virtual
sharing creative work. In this paper, it is intended to 'stages'. Audience Labs is just one of the new institutions
identify a creative toolkit that explores the potentials and emerging to monitor the rapid evolution of digital
challenges of creating an interdisciplinary hyper- performance, towards an increasingly augmented and
authorship, with a synthetic use of language, digital hyper-connected aesthetic. After Eva and Franco Mattes'
technology, AI, and the human body, along with the historic happening on Second Life, some recent proposals
exchanges of creative materials generated through a game of hypermedia performances that have appeared in these
of ‘exquisite corpse’ with human and artificial intelligence, environments impose a re-evaluation of the very essence
as a framework to forge a trans-local and digital heritage of performance, combined with a re-contextualization of
across different physical geographical locations and the concepts of reality, presence, and simulation, under the
networked communities. banner of transdisciplinarity, DIWO (Do It With Others)
and post-anthropocentrism. This article aims to trace the
MARTINO MANCA recent history of digital performance in virtual
(University of Eastern Piedmont; FINO) environments and its heritage, present current creations,
There on the Poplars, We Hang our Harps. AI Writing Literature and and intercept future evolutions of liveness on Metaverse.
Digital Authorship.
ANNABELLA ESPOSITO
(Università di Salerno)
In the latter months, AIs like ChatGPT have become
increasingly popular and recent rumors from major tech An Investigation on the Art Audience in the Metaverse.
companies hint to a stronger integration of conversational
AIs with already existent systems. The discourse over The aim of this talk is to discuss the Metaverse as a new
computer creativity is quite old, as it starts with the space for the democratization of art, starting with the
cybernetic experience of literary groups like the OuLiPo in historic survey L'amour de l'art (1966), carried out by
the Sixties (Calvino, Cibernetica e fantasmi, 1967). French sociologists Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Darbel on
However, recent technical improvements, like the European museum audiences, which demonstrated the
implementation of efficient machine learning systems and need for new forms of communication and inclusion,
the exponential growth of the training corpus for the embodied a few years later by the models of Nouvelle
algorithms, call for a re-discussion of questions about the Muséologie. The most recent projects developed by the
creativity of AIs and the authorship of digital literary University of Salerno's ICT Center for Cultural Heritage go
works produced by AIs. Through an empirical approach, precisely in the direction of an innovative approach to
the paper will try to address the following questions: who heritage participation in a logic that sees the humanities
is the real author of an AI-written piece of literature? Is the and digital languages intersect to constantly improve
imitation of human-written literature an act of real fruition and enhancement, exploiting innovative
creativity? The case study for such an inquiry would be a technologies aimed at encouraging edutainment and thus
deeply ruled kind of text: nonsense poetry. increasing the level of engagement.

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TUESDAY - 12/9/2023 (ROOM S8– ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 4.30-6-00 p.m.

PANEL 6: PARTICIPATION
CHAIR: MARIA CHATZICHRISTODOULOU (KINGSTON UNIVERSITY)

PEDRO MEDINA RENATA PĘKOWSKA

(Istituto Europeo di Design) (Technological University Dublin)
Towards a New Project Culture for Immersive and Participatory Seeking Attention: Tangible and Intangible Museum Experiences and
Projects. the Effects of the Digital Attention Economy.

The current general scenario for any activity takes place in While concerns related to attention scarcity predate the
an atmosphere of infinite metamorphosis. Suffering it or era of digital media and the era of the industrial revolution
understanding it as an opportunity is up to us. Therefore, (Citton, 2019, p.102), digital technologies introduced
in this context, the project culture recognizes that it is not economy models where users’ attention became a source
possible to speak of “innovation” (discovery + application) of profit, with predictive algorithms prolonging the
without associating it with “collaboration”, when planning engagement and data collection enabling targeting users at
the future scope of creation. In this context, the “co-design” the individual level (Bhargava, Velasquez 2021, p.341).
creates a new “culture of participation”, typical of the post- Creative attention, unlike cognitive attention which
industrial world, which thinks of innovation from an classifies objects according to already established
overlap of networks, and connection nodes that speak of a categories, opens up possibilities of forming new
decentralized and mobile reality. Therefore, to the categories and understandings (Citton, 2019, p.105). The
interdisciplinary logic claimed, we must add the active intervention posits museum space experiences as
involvement of all the subjects involved in any project. We, embodied events that can support and re-engage creative
therefore, need new languages for new experiences that attention and other types of attention that are negatively
allow us to consider ethically, politically, and affected by prolonged exposure to digital media platforms.
communicatively the new global context, thus rewriting Museums enable ‘aesthetic attention’ (Citton, p.105),
the constellations of interests of the consolidated systems. through objects and experiences which defy or exceed our
An interesting field of experimentation then opens up preconceptions, and thus enable the delay between the
where local and global realities meet at open intersections, perceiving moment and any hypothesis about the nature of
a novum still to be explored. what is perceived.

CARMEN GONZÁLEZ-ROMÁN SOFIA PESCARIN*, MANUELE VEGGI**

(University of Málaga) (*CNR - Istituto di Scienze del Patrimonio Culturale (ISPC);
Sensoriality, Art and Scenographic Culture in the 16th-18th Centuries: **Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna)
An interactive and inclusive innovative online exhibition. Participatory Experiences as a New Way to Access Conservation Data
in Museum Contexts.
The purpose of this proposal is to present the theoretical
and methodological basis and objectives of an innovative The following presentation hence starts from the
online exhibition about sensoriality, art and scenographic awareness of considering museums firstly as participatory
culture between the 16th and the 18th centuries, environments, where visitors play a crucial role in
developed within the framework of the Spanish Ministry of negotiating the interpretation of cultural heritage. In
Science and Innovation's R+D+i project: Scenographic particular, the presentation will address the core
culture in the Hispanic context of the Modern Age: A holistic application of the re-use of diagnostic data to handle
approach, and in collaboration with the Kunsthistorisches (analyze, reconstruct, and exhibit) colored collections,
Museum, Vienna. The exhibition format is based on the within the EU project PERCEIVE. Starting from the
research currently being carried out by an international importance of mediation in the museum context, the
and interdisciplinary team made up of art historians, intervention will scrutinize the role of interactivity,
theatre historians, and musicologists, most of whom have immersivity, and storytelling as possible approaches to
experience in the design and development of the type of encourage the re-use of diagnostic data in visitor-
virtual exhibition proposed here, which, as the title itself participated experiences. Each of these strategies will be
indicates, is interactive and inclusive. The theme is focused presented through specific case studies, which re-used
on highlighting the sensorial aspects of the artistic and originally the X-Ray technique.
scenographic culture of the past. The paper not only aims
to focus attention on the important role played by the
other senses (smell, taste, and touch), but proposes a
completely new format for art exhibition.

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 Performing Cultural Heritage in the Digital Present - DRHA Conference 2023 | BOOK OF ABSTRACTS

Wednesday 13 September 2023

(AUDITORIUM--ALDO MORO COMPLEX-- 9.00-10.00 AM)

Keynote Presentation
By

CHRISTIAN GRECO
(Director of Museo Egizio di Turin)

Christian Greco has been Director of the Museo Egizio since 2014. Trained mainly in the
Netherlands, he is an Egyptologist with vast experience working in museums.
He curated many exhibition and curatorial projects in the Netherlands (Rijksmuseum van
Oudheden, Leiden; Kunsthal, Rotterdam; Teylers Museum, Haarlem), Japan (Okinawa,
Fukushima, Takasaki and Okayama museums), Finland (Vapriikki Museum,
Tampere), Spain (La Caixa Foundation) and Scotland (National Museum of Scotland,
Edinburgh).
While at the head of the Museo Egizio, he has set up important international collaborations with
museums, universities, and research institutes all across the world.
Greco is also a dedicated teacher. He is currently teaching courses in the material culture of
ancient Egypt and museology at the Università di Torino, Pavia, Napoli, the Scuola di
Specializzazione in Beni Archeologici of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan and
the New York University in Abu Dhabi.
Fieldwork is particularly prominent in Greco’s curriculum. For several years, he was a member
of the Epigraphic Survey of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago in Luxor. Since
2011 he has been co-director of the Italian-Dutch archeological mission at Saqqara.m Greco’s
published record includes many scholarly essays and writings for the non-specialist public in
several languages. He has also been a keynote speaker at a number of Egyptology and
museology international conferences.

Introduced by
STEFANO DE MARTINO
(Università di Torino)
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 Performing Cultural Heritage in the Digital Present - DRHA Conference 2023 | BOOK OF ABSTRACTS

Wednesday 13 September 2023

(ALDO MORO COMPLEX)

Parallel Sessions in the Morning

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WEDNESDAY - 13/9/2023 (ROOM S2– ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 10.30-12-00 a.m.

PANEL 1: MUSIC
CHAIR: ILARIO MEANDRI (UNIVERSITÀ DI TORINO)

EMANUELA VAI DAVID PRIOR

(Worcester College, University of Oxford) (Falmouth University)
Marvellous Musical Instruments of the Renaissance: A Digital Sounding the Museum: The Problematic of the Loudspeaker.
Humanities Approach.
This paper explores the role that sound recording has —
Renaissance musical instruments are often elaborately and might yet have— in heritage practices. Recording
decorated, featuring arabesque patterns, ivory inlays, and technology has had an important role to play in the
carvings of monstrous creatures. These ornamental development of ethnography, but it has also exacerbated
aspects have eluded critical attention but provide openings the conservation paradigm implicit in the notion of
into issues of gender, race, and colonialism in the intangible cultural heritage by objectifying lived
Renaissance period. Using 3D scanning to digitally capture experience into something static and reified. The
details of musical instruments in the Ashmolean Museum’s ephemerality of sound means that it is only through sound
collection in Oxford, this paper will discuss some examples recording that we preserve our acoustic heritage and that
from an interdisciplinary project that examines what these it is often a poor relation to the artifact and the digital
visual and material elements say about the social, political, image in heritage studies and museology. Notwithstanding
and cross-cultural dimensions of Renaissance music notable exceptions, especially in the fields of natural
cultures. Opening up new research fronts within sciences, ethnographic sound recording archives tend to
musicology and museum studies, these 3D scans form part be biased towards the spoken voice and dominated by
of a much larger digital resource: the first comprehensive aural history accounts. Despite the growth in sound
image collection of musical instrument decorations. libraries and collections, documenting our sonic intangible
Drawing on these images of striking musical objects, this cultural heritage —whether artifacts, activities, or the
paper will consider the benefits (and limitations) of acoustics of the environments we inhabit— remains a
digitization, as well as reflect on the role that 3D scanning relatively low priority. Writing from the perspective of a
can play as a tool for public education, heritage former sound designer for the museum sector and building
conservation, and future scholarship. upon two previous essays that explore the spatial
affordances of the loudspeaker (Prior, 2016, and Prior,
RICHARD OSBORNE 2020), this paper concerns the use of the loudspeaker in
(Middlesex University) the context of museum and gallery spaces. It discusses the
The Economics and Ethics of Music Catalogue. durable form of the conventional speaker and asserts that
despite their ubiquity, speakers remain an under-utilized
The recording industry has traditionally operated on a and often misunderstood media in heritage curation
model whereby the profits gained from exploiting music of because they are so rarely used in ways idiomatic to their
the past are used to invest in new music and new artists. inherent behavioral characteristics.
The justice of this for ‘heritage’ musicians has always been
debatable, but this is becoming more pronounced in the MATTEO TAMBORRINO
digital age. First, because an increasing amount of record (Università di Torino)
company revenue is drawn from the back catalog: whereas Square Collegno (2021) by Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch: Holophonic
the division used to be roughly 50/50 between new Soundscapes, between Present and Past.
releases and older music, the catalog now accounts for
about 80% of recorded music consumption. Second, the «A red thread links recent and distant past», stated
contractual agreements of the past are inferior to those of Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch in 2021. The paper aims to focus
today. Royalty rates for recording artists, for example, on Square Collegno, an immersive experience conceived by
were in single-digit figures in the 1960s and 1970s but can the above-mentioned composer and performer, born in
be 25% or more today. The paper will explore two Milan and now based in France, to discover via
consequences of these phenomena. It will look at policies smartphone and through a simple pair of headphones the
that are being undertaken to address the economic history of Lavanderia a Vapore, Centre for Dance
situation of heritage musicians. Some of these policies are Residencies in Piedmont region, and its surrounding
being forced upon record companies through environmental setting one, the Certosa Park. This site-
governmental investigations and legislative updates; specific and holophonic installation has been created as a
others are being voluntarily enacted by the companies. part of Proxemic Fields, research conducted by Bianchi
Hoesch himself between 2016 and 2017 at IRCAM/Centre
Pompidou.

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WEDNESDAY - 13/9/2023 (ROOM S3– ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 10.30-12-00 a.m.

PANEL 2: VIRTUAL REALITY

CHAIR: HOLLY MAPLES (UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX)

GIORGIA COCO LORA MARKOVA

(Università degli Studi di Catania) (Creative Research and Innovation Centre - CRAIC:
Virtual and Real. Ideas and Tools for an Enhanced Theatre in an Loughborough University London)
Empathic Direction. Preserving Immersive Experiences – Audience-Generated Approaches
within Audience of the Future and UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK.
Giving examples of performative outcomes in mixed
VR/live mode, the paper will bring attention to aesthetic This paper will explore forms of audience-generated and
proofs that have adopted solutions of fertile friction industry-led documentation within Audience of the
between what is illusory and what is concrete. Part of the Future’s immersive experience Dream (Royal Shakespeare
talk will focus on the presentation of the experimental Company) and within UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK – the
project Specimens/Exemplars. This is an unprecedented 2022 UK-wide festival of ten experiments in creative
mixed performance work (VR/live), whose original script technology. For instance, the stroboscopic-light spectacle
was composed as a social experiment. The intervention Dreamachine by Collective Act invited audiences to
will go through a) the technical difficulties encountered in document and revive visual and sonic impulses through
the process of pre-production and fruition; b) the working drawing and retelling individual experiences, which can be
methodology used; c) the interpretative dynamics adopted defined as a form of audience-generated archiving;
with regard to the 360° filming; d) the synchronic presence StoryTrails by StoryFutures re-enacted communities’ oral
of performer and spectator; e) the results acquired on the histories through remixing BFI archives into AR and VR
dynamics of the gap between virtual and live modes. experiences and in 3D scanned maps creating an archive of
the present. Overall, the discussion aims to map
SHIRIN HAJAHMADI, SEYEDALI GHASEMPOURI, GUSTAVO immersive modalities and technologies, as classified in the
MARFIA Creative Technologies Framework (UKRI/BOP, 2021) with
(Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna) corresponding (established and experimental) strategies
Toward the Development of a Virtual Museum Experience that of digital preservation.
Provokes Curiosity to Drive the User’s Attention for an Effective
Learning Experience. MASSIMO MAIORINO
(Università degli Studi di Salerno)
The paper will present the design and development of an Digital and/or Analog? Notes on the Exhibition Display from Post
immersive educational virtual-reality museum that aimed Zang Tumb Tuum. Art Life Politics: Italy 1918–1943 to 1923: Past
to provoke curiosity in users to manage their attention in Futures.
three stages: capturing, maintaining, and engaging. Firstly,
the contribution will focus on interaction techniques, The paper aims to articulate a reflection starting from two
environment, and task design processes of this immersive exhibitions as possible paradigms of the museum canon of
VR museum. Secondly, it will present the application of the the present time. The purpose is to identify different
outcomes to assess the user’s experience of the VR system hypotheses set forth the premises of a possible model of
proposed. Finally, the intervention will explore the convergence marked by contamination between
system’s potential to enhance the user's learning antithetical representations. The first, Post Zang Tumb
experience using a sample learning task. With this respect, Tuuum. Art Life Politics: Italia 1918 – 1943 was curated by
the behavioral responses of the users will be discussed on Germano Celant at the Prada Foundation in 2018 and
the base of some indicators that identified their responses recounted a restless period of Italian art, the post-futurism,
related to each stage of the attention-driving procedure. and the dictatorship. The second, 1923: Past Futures
exhibition at the Milan Triennale (2022), instead retraced
the history of the Milanese triennial institution by
proposing a fascinating space-time journey generated by
the creation of virtual environments that re-proposed the
main International Exhibitions that have followed one
another in the last century. These immersive experiences
are differently calibrated between analog writings and
digital devices but centered on the construction of
exhibition/museum displays that develop a different
narrative of art in the public interaction with the space.

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WEDNESDAY - 13/9/2023 (ROOM S4– ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 10.30-12-00 a.m.

PANEL 3: DIGITAL EDUCATION

CHAIR: GABRIELLA TADDEO (UNIVERSITÀ DI TORINO)

SUSANA BARRETO*, ALICE SEMEDO*, CLÁUDIA LIMA**, ELIANA AMIRA AHMED, ALEKSANDRA DULIC*
PENEDOS-SANTIAGO*, ROCIO JIMENEZ***. (Cairo University; *University of British Columbia)
(Universidade do Porto*; University of Lusófona**; University Digital Heritage and its Implications for Global Citizenship Education.
of Huelva***)
Controversial Heritage: Designing Museum didactic materials for This paper explores how immersive digital experiences
Porto’s schools. can contribute to intercultural exchanges and the
dissemination of cultural heritage as implications of global
This article describes an ongoing collaborative research citizenship education. This paper analyzes the best
project undertaken by researchers at the University of practices used in existing digital heritage experiences to
Porto, the National Museum Soares dos Reis and one local inform the design and evaluation of our research-creation
state secondary school. It aims at (a) identifying project. This project allows users to freely navigate their
controversial heritages that are important for schools and way into the world's greatest open-air museum, Luxor city,
museums to explore the complexity of the world; (b) and take a closer look at its prominent monuments and learn
designing a learning scenario for secondary schools that about ancient Egyptian history and mythology. The
uses a set of educational tools that can be used as a starting primary objective of the project is to examine the effects of
point and pedagogical setting for exploring controversial immersion and interaction with a high-resolution, 3D, VR-
heritages in school-museum-city contexts. This article ready video wall on user experience and experiential
explores methodologies applied in the research process learning.
and designs contributions in terms of the methodologies
used (design thinking and co-design methods) and the MICAELA SCHOLTZ
development of teaching materials. (Nelson Mandela University)
Notions of the Visible and the Invisible, Investigating the Global Social
KATHERINE TOWNSEND*, LUCIANA JABUR**, ANNA PIPER***. Media Campaign, ‘THIS IS ENDOMETRIOSIS’.
(*Nottingham Trent Univeristy; **Independent Scholar;
***Sheffield Hallam University) Endometriosis is a common, ‘invisible’, gynecological
Digital Literacy Matters: Supporting Textile Artisans in Guatemala condition that is under-diagnosed and largely
Through Communal Design Approaches misunderstood. This is resultant of a lack of information
and representation due to the constraints set historically
Textiles are one of Guatemala's most valuable cultural by patriarchal culture. The visual representation of
assets and have been part of the Maya community’s Endometriosis, and female reproductive health in general
identity and tradition for centuries. Textiles are also an is critical to develop a better social understanding and
important income generator for indigenous Maya women, debunking the misleading perceptions. New York-based
many of whom live in remote rural areas with very limited photographer, Georgie Wileman, questions such
access to information and communication technology perceptions through a global social media campaign
services. The paper will focus on the crucial role played by established in 2019 titled THIS IS ENDOMETRIOSIS. In
mobile technology in enabling textile artisans to maintain response to Wileman’s campaign, I visually reflected on my
material resources and income streams during personal, embodied experience with this illness.
government-enforced COVID-19 lockdowns. It will explore
how digital literacy was applied to both maintain and YELIN ZHAO*, FAN WU*, BING WANG*, JIAXUN LI**
transform textile craft practices within Indigenous (*Indipendent Scholar; **University of York)
communities, by amplifying social, cultural, and economic The Rhizomatic Virtual Visiting Experience: A Case Study of the
development. Palace Museum (Beijing) on WeChat.

Adopting an innovative approach of combining the walk-

through method with collaborative autoethnographic text,
this paper argues that the WeChat Mini-programmes, with
the platform’s unique ‘super stickiness (Chen et al., 2018)’
and its programmability and connectivity, contribute to
the production of a highly diversified and personalized
experience of visiting the cultural heritage in China. The
nested platforms in the form of Mini-programmes serve to
be the multiple entrances of the rhizome and facilitate a
more extended and multiplied visitor outreach possibility.

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WEDNESDAY - 13/9/2023 (ROOM S6– ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 10.30-12-00 a.m.

PANEL 4: DIGITAL HERITAGE

CHAIR: ANTONIO PIZZO (UNIVERSITÀ DI TORINO)

LU JI*, XIAOXU LIANG**, MIN ZHOU*** PAULA GUZZANTI, JOHN D’ARCY

(*Università degli Studi di Firenze; **Politecnico di Torino; (University of Malta; Queen’s University of Belfast)
***Henan Agricultural University) Performing 'Pathways': Exploring the Cultural Heritage of the
Enhancing Multi-Stakeholders’ Collaboration Towards Holistic Pedestrian through Movement and Digital Media.
Heritage Management Through Meta-Design Approach.
The paper will share new outputs and reflections from the
The paper defines three main functional areas for ongoing interdisciplinary collaborative research project
managing cultural heritage value enhancement practices: ‘Pathways’. Initiated in 2021, ‘Pathways’ emerges from
(a) a static web page for information presentation; (b) an the collaboration between dance artist Paula Guzzanti
online interactive learning management system (LMS); (c) and digital media artist John D’Arcy. The project explores
a communication and multi-user collaboration forum. the contemporary transformation of pedestrian culture
Specifically, the article discusses these three functional using digital capture, documentation, and mediation of
areas from the derivation of stakeholder needs, the meta- movement performance. ‘Pathways’ aims to foster critical
design evolutionary growth model, and the corresponding reflection upon the pedestrian’s sensorial and
technical solutions, to the end-user scenarios and the sociocultural experience within urban environments, and
interactive interface structures. The output meta-design how contemporary developments in transport
platform as a cultural heritage management tool can help infrastructure may help or hinder sustainable living
users organize their learning and work online, enabling practices. This intervention will explore recent project
them to become producers of cultural value. Thus, by developments including the production of a VR 360-Video
increasing public participation in heritage issues and walking experience; an interactive Google Earth map; and
stimulating the co-creation of the heritage community, it an XR location-activated audio walk. The presentation
can contribute to local economic benefits and empower will also offer a specific focus on core aspects of the
heritage's role in shaping society, identity, and national Pathways project such as sustainability, fostering
consciousness. citizenship and advocacy around future urban
development, and framing pedestrian movement as a
PATRYK WASIAK form of cultural heritage.
(Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences)
Researching Amateur Programming Cultures as the Heritage of Digital RENATA SHEPPARD
Culture Heritage. (Global Exchange Arts Roundtable)
Films That Move: Capturing Cultural Heritage through an Immersive
This paper discusses the theoretical foundations and the Filmmaking Artist Residency.
practice of researching amateur programming cultures of
the 1980s and 1990s as an instance of the heritage of Films That Move, formerly called Experimental Film
digital culture from that era. The objective of the ongoing Virginia, is a hybrid cultural program designed to bring
research is to understand the cultural logic of the international artists into a collaborative, peer-supported,
emergence of programming as a technical and cultural pedagogical creative space with the agenda of exploring
practice carried out outside of academic and commercial the short film format. This paper will cover the concept and
environments. The intervention will explore how studying design of the festival/artist residency and its evolution
software enables us to understand the social, cultural, and over the last ten years as well as the key points for why the
economic contexts of digital culture in a specific historical project is significant, with scalable and transferable
setting (Galloway 2006). Firstly, it will be discussed the lessons in design which touch upon sustainability in the
possibilities of using theoretical frameworks for research arts, preserving cultural heritage and using digital
on how software artifacts can be interpreted as the technologies to do so as well as serving an important
heritage of digital culture. Secondly, the materiality and the purpose for artists and audiences alike.
infrastructure of software preservation will be analyzed.

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WEDNESDAY - 13/9/2023 (ROOM S7– ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 10.30-12-00 a.m.

PANEL 5: PERFORMING DESIGN

CHAIR: ANASTASIOS MARAGIANNIS (UNIVERSITY OF GREENWICH)

GIOVANNA SANTAERA ALESSANDRA MIANO

(Università degli Studi di Catania) (Università della Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli")
Coming OUT (the) MUSEUM. Cinematographic Engagements New Frontiers in Dwelling Museum Spaces in the Phygital Dimension:
Through the OUTFEST’s Online Platform. What Digital Technology Can Do.

The OUT Museum has been designed as the first «LGBTQ+ Through case studies, related to the integration of phygital
arts and media virtual museum» by the OUTFEST, a technology in space and the dwelling gesture of visitors,
nonprofit organization born in 1982 animated by the the paper aims to extrapolate the characteristics of
Outfest UCLA film archive project, whose goal is phygital museum spaces, as narrative amplifiers of the
empowering filmmakers and communities. To achieve this intangible dimension of cultural heritage. From smart
aim, it has created the museum as a digital platform objects (Whispering Table, TheGreenEylStudio) to
following different strategies which combine film festival sensible environments (Museum Laboratory of the Mind,
programs and digital channels as a unique environment. Studio Azzurro), to collective performance (Humania,
This paper investigates the specific methods used as best KosmanndeJong), move in the direction of vivifying the
practices for other institutions to experiment with new museum experience through the embodied engagement of
ways for sharing the cinematographic heritage viewed as visitors, linking the representation of artworks to the
inherited and living production, according to different multiplicity of experiences that can be connected and thus
research about the museum and audiovisual tools as forms considering the museum as a place of multivocal gazes, as
of communication digitally and not (ICOM 2020). highlighted by the updated ICOM definition. The aim is to
map best practices related to the design of phygital
ALEKSANDRA KOSZTYŁA museum spaces, in which starting from the centrality of the
(ID+, FBAUP) storytelling, link the performativity of the visiting
Poetic Dimension in Immersive Exhibitions of Renaissance Art: experience to the situated and invisible digital technology.
Balancing Technology and Cultural Heritage.
PAOLO CLINI, RENATO ANGELONI, MIRCO D'ALESSIO, UMBERTO
This article aims to explore the role of the poetic dimension FERRETTI*.
in immersive exhibitions of Renaissance art. The focus is (Università delle Marche; *La Sapienza Università di Roma)
on the delicate balance between the use of technology and Accessing the Inaccessible: A VR Experience for the Enigmatic Bas-
the presentation of ancient art to create an engaging visitor Reliefs of the Campana Caves.
experience. The article delves into the significance of the
poetic dimension in immersive exhibitions and the Extended Reality has demonstrated its potential in
strategies employed to achieve it. The concept of "slow" supporting conservation and communication processes of
design is also considered and its potential impact on the Cultural Heritage. Among different available technologies,
visitor experience is discussed. Three immersive particularly Virtual Reality provides effective manners to
exhibitions of Renaissance art are used as examples to experience CH by fostering new forms of engagement.
showcase the successful integration of technology and Indeed, through virtual interactions with digital twins, it is
ancient art, as well as the importance of the poetic possible to generate Interactive Thematic Virtual
dimension in enhancing the visitor experience. The article Environments (ITVE) that allow visitors to experience
concludes by examining the ongoing debate surrounding interactive storytelling associated with artifacts and
the use of technology in museums and exhibitions. Both artworks, or even with a whole cultural site. This paper
positive and negative opinions are acknowledged, offering focuses specifically on the ITVE potential in accessing the
a nuanced view of the topic. Overall, this article examines inaccessible, as implemented for the Campana Caves in
the role of the poetic dimension in immersive exhibitions Osimo (Italy). These galleries are part of the tunnel system
of Renaissance art, highlighting the interplay between which sprawls under the old town. For centuries, it was
technology and ancient art, and the potential impact it can used by the population as a war shelter. Moreover, along
have on the visitor experience. the walls and vaults of the two main corridors, enigmatic
figures carved in the stone are keepers of old Masonic
rituals.. Unfortunately, most of the representations are no
longer recognizable. In such a scenario, digital
documentation is crucial for defining a proper
conservation plan, and even more for designing an
alternative experience of a site that must be kept physically
inaccessible to be preserved.

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WEDNESDAY - 13/9/2023 (ROOM S8– ALDO MORO COMPLEX): 10.30-12-00 a.m.

PANEL 6: DIGITAL ENGAGEMENT

CHAIR: LETIZIA GIOIA MONDA (UNIVERSITÀ DI TORINO)

IL SUN MOON DIEGO SCHIAVO

(Kingston University London) (Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna)
Atmospheric Diagram: Exploration of Diaristic Moving Image in FORMA: A Prototype of Immersive Audiovisual Archiving of Live
Experimental Artistic Practice. Performance.

The paper will explore how the idea of “diaristic” can be This talk aims to present the research developed in the
practiced as an art form. It will question the new meaning project "FORMA. Representing space: performance,
of an atmospheric space that can be created through documentation and immersive archive," developed within
moving images by reflecting on Jonas Mekas’ 365 Day the Department of the Arts of the University of Bologna
Project (2007), Walden (1969), Gilles Deleuze’s diagram, under the guidance of Prof. Enrico Pitozzi (Bando
and Bruno Giuliana’s concept of atmospheric projection. AlmaIdea - PNRR 2022). The goal of this project is to
Various diaristic practices create unique ways of crafting elaborate a prototype application for the documentation
and making that cannot be defined in a specific structure, and fruition of live performances, archived with innovative
form, or purpose that can be called a genre. Since the digital techniques. In order to achieve this goal, it was
concept of the diary expanded to both the private and necessary to change the approach, interrogating the
public spheres in the twenty-first century, the newly technical possibilities to overstep of two-dimensionality of
developing video environment offers various approaches a normal video archive to record different and multiple
to self-writing or self-making, including digital image angles of fruition, both on the visual and sound planes. At
software, social media platforms, and personal archives as the same time it was necessary to balance this multiplicity
an ongoing development of self. However, the process of of viewing and listening points with the show authors’
making has been less discussed in terms of its artistic and intentions, in order not to distort them. This led to the
atmospheric value because, most of the time, the process is definition of an innovative, replicable and flexible model
considered as a draft that will be removed from the for documenting - in addition to the actions - the spatial
finished work. I argue the practice of the diary continues in forms through which to trace the compositional principle.
a romantic and positivist sense as a commentarial self or
expression of sensations, which requires an expanded ISABELLE VERHULST, POLLY DALTON, ADAM GANTZ, RACHEL
understanding as an intimate artistic practice. DONNELLY*
(Royal Holloway University of London; *Imperial War
LEE DAVID MILLER, JOANNE "BOB" WHALLEY Museums (IWM)
(Falmouth University) The Sense of 'Being There’ in an Audio World. Learnings from the 'One
Otherwising: The Distributed Dramaturgies of Volumetric Capture. Story, Many Voices' Immersive Audio Installation UK Tour.

While there might be little novelty in acknowledging the The sense of ‘being there’ in an immersive experience such
challenges presented in the documentation of live as VR or AR (also referred to as a sense of ‘presence’) is a
performance practice, or the close relationship between key success predictor. For example, the feeling of presence
documentation and dissemination in the context of artistic has been linked with learning, willingness to pay, and the
research, there is nevertheless still work to be done on the likelihood of repeat visits. Furthering the understanding of
dramaturgy of the document. By considering emergent what creates a presence in XR will help to create more
protocols and workflows for capturing material from compelling immersive experiences in the future. In a series
existing archives in XR formats, and documenting large- of real-world studies, the paper will explore the predictors
scale, live performance using volumetric capturing of presence in immersive audio installations. It will
techniques, this presentation seeks to consider the question whether presence (and a range of other aspects
potential impact that these developments might have upon of experience, including perceived audio quality, audio
the dramaturgical strategies employed within ephemeral, spatialization, and overall enjoyment) is affected by the
process-driven performance practice. method of audio presentation. The case of study is an audio
installation ‘One Story, Many Voices’, using either
loudspeakers or headphones with 3D spatialized sound,
presented stories and poems about WWII to museum
visitors at a partnership of ten Museums in the UK.

48
CREDITS:
Conference Chairs: Antonio Pizzo and Gabriella Giannachi

Conference Deputy Chairs: Giulia Anastasia Carluccio and

Vincenzo Lombardo

Organising Committee: Silvio Alovisio, Andrea Balbo,

Gianluca Cuniberti, Rossana Damiano, Livio Gaeta,
Graziano Lingua, Ermanno Malaspina, Andrea Malvano,
Alessandro Morandotti, Simone Natale, Alberto Pelissero,
Alessandro Pontremoli, Franca Varallo, Gelsomina Spione.

DRHA Standing Committee: Susan Broadhurst;

Anastasios Maragiannis; Gauti Sigthorsson;
Maria Chatzichristodoulou; Steve Dixon; Daniel Ploeger;
Christopher Pressler; Toni Sant; Olu Taiwo.

Program Curator: Letizia Gioia Monda

Exhibition Curator: Federica Patti

Technical Supervisor: Maurizio Consolandi

Technical Assistant: Niccolò Pillon

Accommodation Manager: Luca Befera

Volunteers: Martina Conforti, Stella Franceschino,

Alessia Grillone, Anna Magnaldi, Maria Pia Morello,
Patrizia Polignano, Rosita Ronzini, Sofia Scibilia,
Chiara Senatore, Beatrice Toso

THANKS TO:

Il Gusto del Mondo: Paola Nervi, Stefano Castello

Web Designer: Fabio Gianello

STAFF UniTo:
Comunication and Press Office: Elena Bravetta

UniVerso: Elena Bravetta, Chiara Borroni, Giulia Pafumi

External Relations: Chiara Torta, Francesca Bianchini,

Chiara Piga

Logistics: Gianluca Procopi

Istitutional Communication and Visual Identity:

Stefania Stecca,
Federico Feroldi, Alessia Guerretta, Andrea Mazzocca;
Giovanni Zambon