New generations are the first to face a challenge never happened before: to pass on digital culture – a great effort, which depends on a large part of cultural preservation. Much has already been destroyed: e-mails, images, archives for the most varied reasons. A quick change is necessary for people’s perception of Culture.
In the last years, the DISUM Department of UNIBA, the Biblio Project Coordinator, together with Stati Generali dell’Innovazione have designed and created a new educational methodology, based on a living lab approach: The Art of Crowddreaming. This methodology is based on the creation process and the management of Digital Cultural Monument (DCM), innovative computational artefacts that could be considered as the new Digital Cultural Heritage.
To guarantee the digital curation of this kind of creations, new professional profiles are necessary; and in this way, juniors have given an exceptional response to innovation.
The Art of Crowddreaming has been tested in some educational projects involving about 350 high school students, together with their teachers, in the creation of several Augmented Reality (AR) experiences related to Apulian Cultural Heritage and History. Against all the odds, students have conceived some creations that follow the typical cultural and creative industries steps: from management to the modelling in itself.
You can see the results of this experimentation on your smart devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.) downloading the Metaverse open source app and searching the AR experiences by keywords (Bona Sforza, Dinosauri, Transatlantico, etc.).
Education is the key to promote the needed preservation of Heritage. The creation of training courses in the digital field is the new cultural goal. For example, Biblio tries to ponder the education of professionals. The educational target is different, but the purpose is the same: raise the awareness of people to be proactive in a digitized world.
By UNIBA
Featured image Stefan Steinbauer on Unsplash