Author: Efstratios Geronikolakis

Storytelling, presence and gamification are three basic fields that need to be taken into account when developing novel mixed reality applications for cultural heritage, based on the recent renaissance of commercial VR and AR hardware. In this survey paper, the role of Storytelling, Presence and Gamification fields in cultural heritage is described. These fields are essential for the development of a Virtual Museum application, in order for the users to have an interesting and fun experience when they use it. The ways that each one of these fields can be integrated in a Virtual Museum application are described in this survey paper. Some examples of such applications are given as well. Finally, a survey of recent MR methods for Virtual Museums is presented. For each method, the possible use of Storytelling or Gamification fields is highlighted alongside with interaction, tracking and the immersion of each method and installation and whether it has to do with intangible heritage. The survey paper can be found...

Martha Vassiliadi1, Stella Sylaiou2,3 and George Papagiannakis4* 1Department of Philology, School of Philosophy, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece 2Department of Visual and Applied Arts, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece 3School of Social Sciences, Hellenic Open University, Patras, Greece 4Department of Computer Science & Institute of Computer Science (FORTH-ICS), University of Crete & Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), Heraklion, Greece It is well-known that the Decadent movement in European literature (fin de siècle) depends on the narrative of the antiquity, as it is revealed from the discoveries of archeology in the second half of the nineteenth century. Amid the ruins of the past authors, painters and poets re-conceptualize time and history through a modernist vision based on an imaginary reconfiguration of the antiquity. In this context, the myth of a city (Pompeii) or of a woman (Salomé) offer examples that would illustrate in a great variety the synergy of a multi-temporal and multi-cultural memory of the myth. In this paper we identify a “content-based” shortcoming of modern Mixed Reality (MR) intangible and tangible digital heritage storytelling applications for digital humanities. It is an important problem as the very nature of these applications has often been identified with either misguided storytelling, or non-compelling, non-engaging narratives, except the initial captivating moments due to the immersive 3D visual simulation. We propose a new concept that forthcoming MR applications can draw from:...