Join us in a talk with Dr. Agiatis Benardou about immersive experiences and difficult heritage.
Immersive experiences describe all forms of perceptual and interactive use of technologies and physical spaces/objects in order to create a hybrid reality. Immersion is arguably a means of memory re-composition in the cultural heritage domain. Despite the opportunities afforded by immersion there has been a lack of substantive evidence to evaluate current approaches and guide future developments, especially in difficult heritage sites. Particularly in Europe, immersion has not been employed widely in such sites. In Scotland alone, however, immersion is used in two difficult heritage sites, Bannockburn and Culloden.
The talk will present and build on research results from the Scottish Heritage Partnership, which addressed the existing practice and future potential of immersive experiences in the culture and heritage industry in Scotland. Consequently, she will focus on Block 15 of the Haidari Concentration Camp in West Athens, the largest and most notorious one in wartime Greece. The Block 15 showcase will employ a mixed methodological approach, in which digital methods will be applied to the re-composition of difficult memory through immersive technologies, ethnography, history and digital narratives.
