Places speaking with their own voices. A case study from the gra.fo archives

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel approach for the fruition of cultural heritage based on the “Augmented Cultural Heritage” paradigm. This expression has been used to describe the improvement to the visit to a Tangible Cultural Site with additional Intangible Cultural Assets like audio recordings or oral testimonies. The proposed approach is applied to the area of the Montagna Pistoiese, Tuscany, Italy: in this case the visit to the site is enriched by providing visitors with oral material coming from the “Anna Buonomini” archive, a collection of audio recordings of high historical and cultural value. The audio files are geo-referenced and associated to a specific position in the area. The user is able to hear a recording only when he/she reaches the specific geographical point associated with the file. The audio is played adaptively with the distance to the point, so as to emulate a real voice coming from the place.