DIGITAL PRACTICES FOR GENERATING INTERACTION: EXHIBITS AND MUSEUMS AS PHYGITAL ENVIRONMENTS

Over the last two decades, two trends have profoundly changed the conception and design of events aimed at enhancing cultural heritage, both around temporary and permanent exhibitions: the organization of the content offered and, hence, of the exhibition tools, on the concept of narration and the experimentation of digital experience modes. These two new horizons, wildly where they coexist in an integrated way, are increasingly aimed at constructing “phygital”, blended, and cross-reality (XR) experiences. These are experiences based on the interaction between the physical environment (and thus its analog communicative structure) and the digital environment (consisting of virtual enhancements of the experiential form of the visit). These interactions occur thanks to technologies that create hybrid and innovative communicative and interactive levels. This paper focuses on the intersection of these new paradigms that prefer experiential interaction guided by storytelling design to purely technological interaction, i.e., based on instrumental implementation only. Therefore, the cultural heritage enhancement project is investigated here by implementing augmented and enabling digital experiences according to a holistic and human-centered vision. This vision generates new exhibition scenarios, where the technological upgrade acts as a means of consolidating and expanding the narrative capability of the exhibition space. It activates, in fact, new perceptive experiences (whether related to material or immaterial content), configured through the physical and active involvement of the visitor, who acts, therefore, as a sort of relational trigger.