Heritage in Virtual Environments

Cultural heritage plays a key role in social cohesion and inclusion. It contributes to a sense of belonging, helps build shared identities and promotes cultural awareness and historical reflection. The last year has been a tumultuous one for the heritage sector. The COVID 19 pandemic has had a huge impact resulting in many temporary closures and threatening the survival of many heritage organisations. At the same time there was a huge response with organisations connecting with audiences in the digital domain. We saw many organisations stepping up their digital profile through creating virtual tours, digital galleries, Live events and social media posts. This response to impact took place in the context of virtual reality, augmented reality and other digital innovations starting to move into the heritage mainstream. In CHIVE we will collate and analyse primary research into the heritage response to COVID 19, there have been questionnaires by ICOM and NEMO and many national questionnaires. We will conduct primary qualitative research into the impact and response to COVID 19 in the heritage sector. In doing so we will identify and understand what worked well, which will enable us to learn from the response and establish a new best practice which addresses resilience and sustainability. Advances in cutting edge technologies make new modes of interaction with heritage possible. Through augmented reality, virtual reality, reconstructions and digital restoration, engaging immersive experiences can be accessed, in the museum, in the locality and at home. In CHIVE we will evaluate existing tools for the development of AR, VR and cross reality heritage tools and applications. This will enable us to establish road maps for fostering the use of existing, and developing new tools.  The HIVE project will build upon digitisation efforts, virtual museums and digital infrastructure developed as part of previous NPA projects.