Smart artefacts and spaces to interact, promote and transfer cultural knowledge

This paper sets out to paint a portrait of applications and trends in interactive and smart solutions designed to use a multimedia educational approach to foster and promote CH. It is increasingly important in the field of cultural heritage, museums and exhibitions to facilitate learning by encouraging visitors to interact directly and physically with the heritage on display, and current research seeks to identify engaging strategies and means to communicate cultural messages. Some projects focus on the physicality of tangible interaction thanks to innovative interfaces and technology embedded in objects, while others engage users in moving their whole bodies or making simple gestures to interact with digital and multimedia content and break down the barrier between the physical and the digital. The case study outlined here describes an interactive exhibition on the world of Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci in which visitors interact with a life-sized holographic projection and have the impression that Leonardo da Vinci actually sees them and decides to entertain them with short anecdotes from his life, recounting his work and relationship with nature.