A fundamental aspect of visiting museums is the involvement of visitors to facilitate the understanding of the collections on display [Black 2005, p. 7]: museums must therefore adopt techniques derived from the fields of relational and experiential marketing to improve the services offered.This contribution focuses on an ongoing experience, conducted at the Museum of Oriental Art in Turin (MAO), which involves the use of augmented reality (AR) combined with digital fabrication, applied in the field of cultural accessibility and marketing.In June 2021 the museum chose Lady Yang as artwork/mascot that would symbolically accompany the users in the visit path. It was decided to make this accompaniment tangible through digitally fabricated objects (a bookmark and a tactile replica) and an AR experience.The contribution wants to show the research workflow, from the digital acquisition of the artwork up to AR experience and digital fabrication, in a continuous transition between real and virtual, to demonstrate how they are mutually enriching in the visiting experience and process of knowledge.
VR, AR and Tactile Replicas for Accessible Museums. The Museum of Oriental Art in Turin
This work is part of the agreement stipulated between the Department of Architecture and Design of the Politecnico di Torino and the Fondazione Torino Musei for the enhancement of the cultural heritage of the Museum of Oriental Art (MAO). The agreement aims at the realization of accessible exhibition paths including multi-sensorial experiences in situ (tactile paths and AR experiences) and online (VR proposals) in the MAO. Specifically, six stages of this path have been identified, including the museum’s entrance hall and five artworks (one for each geographical area of the collection) which are the subject of the survey and restitution process. This involves thesis students of the Design and Visual Communication course of Politecnico di Torino for the development of prototype apps on the selected works and one of the authors for digital fabricated models and replica.
AI+AR: Cultural Heritage, Museum Institutions, Plastic Models and Prototyping. A State of Art
The links between representation and artificial intelligence (AI) invade many fields of architectural re-search, recording continuous and significant advances: they require, on the one hand, a constant update of the state of the art and, on the other hand, careful consideration of the role of Representation in interdisciplinary research in this field. The present contribution intends to investigate these intertwining in some of the most frequented research fields in recent years: the valorization and communication of Cultural Heritage and cultural tourism, the experiences in the museum field, the research on the role of the prototype within the processes of artificial intelligence applied to architecture.