Art and archaeology in an interactive time-traveling online and museum experience. A case study on the Via Appia Antica.

Abstract

This paper presents an innovative exploration of digital twinning technologies and its integration with artistic perspectives and interactive museum storytelling. It presents a physical and virtual online museum exhibition that was developed to visualize and experience changes of an archaeological landscape. Central to this exhibition was an interactive installation with a virtual 3D environment in which visitors could revisit viewpoints of past image creators like photographers, cinematographers, architects and painters. The exhibition combined digital twin technologies with artistic and archaeological research to form an immersive landscape biography.As a study area, the exhibition focused on mile V and VI of the Via Appia Antica near Rome. For six different funerary monuments, the exact locations of 110 historical images have been revisited and geo-referenced in a virtual 3D environment. Each historical image was artistically morphed into a present-day image using video technology. Additionally, visitors could explore virtual reconstructions and 3D prints of these monuments, accompanied with 3D animations.The paper discusses the motivation behind the design and setup of the museum and virtual exhibition, together with the technological challenges that were encountered. All tooling for this research was developed as Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS), allowing it to be reused. We discuss lessons learned and future application perspectives of the presented concept and installation. The work illustrates the power of blending cutting-edge technologies with art and storytelling to create a dynamic, accessible, and enriching experience of cultural heritage.