Urban Heritage in Extended Reality: Navigating Public Spaces and Digital Engagement

Activity: Talk or presentationPresentation at conference/workshop/seminar

Description

Across the world, heritage sites are increasingly leveraging digital technologies to enhance visitor engagement, with Extended Reality (XR) tools such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) gaining particular traction. Research indicates that these can have several benefits, including education, immersion, and increased engagement. However, despite their growing adoption, these experiences face a wealth of challenges in their formulation and implementation, ranging from economic and technological concerns to questions about authenticity and sustainability. While many of these challenges are common to digital heritage projects, deploying XR experiences in urban settings comes with a unique set of limitations and difficulties, such as crowds, traffic, the dynamic nature of public spaces, and legal and regulatory requirements. By analyzing case studies and qualitative interviews, this research identifies key barriers and examines how these impact the success of XR initiatives. It then shares best practices from existing projects on how these challenges may be overcome. These reflections aim to support future design and curation of XR heritage experiences in urban areas. This research contributes to the theoretical understanding of heritage XR curatorial practices and offers practitioners a range of perspectives from various cultural and professional backgrounds.
Period31 Aug 2025
Event titlePreservation, Production and Reproduction: Urban Heritage Transformation around the World
Event typeConference
Degree of RecognitionInternational

Keywords

  • Digital Heritage
  • Urban Heritage
  • Extended Reality (XR)