Sixteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

This paper focuses on Augmented Reality (AR) applications created for the sites of memory in order to reveal unseen cultural heritage. Deterioration of the tangible evidences of a cultural heritage due to natural disasters, warfare, political destruction and alike compromises not only its visibility, but also its presence in collective memory. By making the unseen visible in such cultural heritage sites, AR applications support the spatial experiences of the visitors and turn the traditional sites of memory into augmented environments. With the convergence of physically visible features of the heritage and digitally created appearances of the unseen, not only personal memory of the visitor but also collective memory of the local community is rooted in the site of memory. However, what one remembers in these converged environments immensely depends on the modes of digital representation of the vanished heritage. Varying from the highly realistic reproductions of the heritage to abstract representations, this paper aims to analyze remembering through different representation modes used in AR applications created for cultural heritage sites by means of a method derived from classical memorizing technique of the art of memory. This technique relies on placing the images, which are mental representations of memorized thing, in well-ordered and mentally completely constructed loci, i.e. places. The categorization of different modes of representation applied in AR applications according to these components and the analysis of them by the rules defined in the technique will provide insights into the use of augmented environments for cultural heritage sites.