Virtual worlds, virtual heritage and immersive reality: the case of the Daming Palace at Xi’an, China

Abstract

This contribution is focused on the analysis of the role of virtual worlds and immersive realities1 in relation with the impact and relevance they can have in the digital communication and management of heritage. I will discuss Virtual Heritage (VH), in relation to the principles of second cybernetics (Bateson, 1972). According to Bateson ‘without context there is no communication’ and the ‘map is not territory’ (Bateson, 1972). This means that any communication process has to be contextualized and that we need a code for any informational transmission. These principles can be applicable to VH, in the sense that VH represents the cybernetic ‘map’, the code of cultural heritage and its context of communication. A VH process is intended as the capacity of learning and transmitting information in a virtual environment, which depends on the feedback generated by differences between actor/user and the environment (Forte and Bonini, 2010). In this domain of overlapping of technological, social, cultural and economic issues, it is very important to distinguish between ‘cultural value’ and ‘economic’ in relation to heritage. Both terms are difficult to consider in an absolute way: the informational cultural value depends on the process of feedback, dissemination, communication and elearning; the economic value of the benefits produced by a VH circuit (in relation with territory, local context, media, cultural presence and social communication). The economic value can be estimated: for example, museum fees, tickets, merchandising, exhibits, local economy, events and related activities. The same is not true for the cultural value, since it embraces different and complex circuits of valorization, consumption and communication of heritage.2 VH has to be studied as a process able to communicate, transmit and catalyze networks of cultural information. The first part of the chapter focuses on the discussion of the theoretical approach and definition of a process of VH. The second part is more