Abstract
Digital technologies or media are often perceived to be artificial and to stand in contrast to ideas of ‘authenticity’ and of ‘real’ places or objects. This poses a challenge for many house museums in search of ways to communicate about the immaterial aspects of their collections. Danish house museums especially refrain from introducing digital communication means, in fear of disturbing the visitor’s experiences of an ‘authentic’ home, and in fear of excluding their core elder audiences. But is it possible to merge digital media with the physical house museum setting, in ways that are experienced by visitors as ‘authentic’? And is there a difference between how younger and older generations experience such ‘hybrid’ realities? The paper presents the results of an empirical study into the potentials and challenges of using digital sound to communicate about intangible heritage in a house museum setting in Copenhagen, formerly the home of a Danish literary couple, in the early 1800s. In several design experiments, we have used digital sound to re-create scenes from the couple’s everyday life in the house. Through systematic observations and qualitative interviews with museum visitors, we have gained knowledge about how visitors experience ‘authenticity’ in relation to ‘the digital’, during these experiments and across demographics. The paper presents the most important findings from the study and relate them to wider questions of how museums can use digital technologies to communicate about immaterial cultural heritage. The paper proposes new and ‘hybrid’ directions for house museums and other ‘authentic’ heritage sites.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
IMMATERIAL CULTURAL HERITAGE, DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY, AUTHENTICITY, HOUSE MUSEUMS, HYBRID REALITIES
