Updating the art history curriculum: incorporating virtual and augmented reality technologies to improve interactivity and engagement

Master's Project (M.Ed.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2017This project investigates how the art history curricula in higher education can borrow from and incorporate emerging technologies currently being used in art museums. Many art museums are using augmented reality and virtual reality technologies to transform their visitors' experiences into experiences that are interactive and engaging. Art museums have historically offered static visitor experiences, which have been mirrored in the study of art. This project explores the current state of the art history classroom in higher education, which is historically a teacher-centered learning environment and the learning effects of that environment. The project then looks at how art museums are creating visitor-centered learning environments; specifically looking at how they are using reality technologies (virtual and augmented) to transition into digitally interactive learning environments that support various learning theories. Lastly, the project examines the learning benefits of such tools to see what could (and should) be implemented into the art history curricula at the higher education level and provides a sample section of a curriculum demonstrating what that implementation could look like. Art and art history are a crucial part of our culture and being able to successfully engage with it and learn from it enables the spread of our culture through digital means and of digital culture

Women, Children and Hospitable Spaces

This paper argues that the patronage of women with children has been largely ignored by hospitality academics. It establishes the context for the study of the subject as well as helping to set the research agenda by reviewing existing literature, identifying relevant bodies of literature which may underpin the future study of the subject, and pointing to gaps in current knowledge. The paper discusses the organisational challenges and opportunities in targeting or hosting these consumer segments. It focuses on venue design, facilities and the spatial strategies for accommodating women with children in venues. The paper also discusses issues concerning emotional labour and consumer co-creation, and it argues that studies of consumer experience in hospitality need to shift emphasis from dyadic relationships, involving hosts and guests, to considering triadic relationships, involving hosts, guests and others, including other guests and consumers not directly involved in the consumption experience

Liberate your avatar; the revolution will be social networked

This paper brings together the practice-based creative research of artists Charlotte Gould and Paul Sermon, culminating in a collaborative interactive installation that investigates new forms of social and political narrative in multi-user virtual environments. The authors' artistic projects deal with the ironies and stereotypes that are found within Second Life in particular. Paul Sermon’s current creative practice looks specifically at the concepts of presence and performance within Second Life and 'first life', and attempts to bridge these two spaces through mixed reality techniques and interfaces. Charlotte Gould’s Ludic Second Life Narrative radically questions the way that users embody themselves in on-line virtual environments and identifies a counter-aesthetic that challenges the conventions of digital realism and consumerism. These research activities and outcomes come together within a collaborative site-specific public installation entitled Urban Intersections for ISEA09, focusing on contested virtual spaces that mirror the social and political history of Belfast. The authors' current collaborative practice critically investigates social, cultural and creative interactions in Second Life. Through these practice-based experiments the authors' argue that an enhanced social and cultural discourse within multi-user virtual environments will inevitably lead to growth, cohesion and public empowerment, and like all social networking platforms, contribute to greater social and political change in first life

More than sense of place? Exploring the emotional dimension of rural tourism experiences

It is widely suggested that participation in rural tourism is underpinned by a sense of rural place or “rurality”. However, although nature and the countryside have long been recognised as a source of spiritual or emotional fulfilment, few have explored the extent to which tourism, itself often claimed to be a sacred experience, offers an emotional/spiritual dimension in the rural context. This paper addresses that literature gap. Using in-depth interviews with rural tourists in the English Lake District, it explores the extent to which, within respondents’ individual understanding of spirituality, a relationship exists between sense of place and deeper, emotional experiences and, especially, whether participation in rural tourism may induce spiritual or emotional responses. The research revealed that all respondents felt a strong attachment to the Lake District; similarly, and irrespective of their openness to spirituality, engaging in rural tourism activities resulted in highly emotive experiences for all respondents, the description/interpretation of such experiences being determined by individual “beliefs”. However, sense of place was not a prerequisite to emotional or spiritual experiences. Being in and engaging with the landscape � effectively becoming part of it � especially through physical activity is fundamental to emotional responses

Designing Museums for Participation, Collaboration and Social Interaction

This thesis documents the design and development of novel interactive experiences that explored concepts aimed to enhance the visitor experience to Cork Butter Museum, Cork, Ireland. The context to the work is that in recent years, museums and cultural institutions are increasingly motivated to apply creative strategies to engage visitors who come for recreational, social and sometimes educative purposes. Novel museum exhibits designed to cater for such needs often involves the integration of new media technologies in response to rising expectations visitors have with regards to being actively engaged during their visit. This often requires a higher level of participation than reading text or looking at artefacts from a controlled distance. Researchers have explored transforming the visitor experience through a wide range of projects in the fields of embodied interaction and experience design, which might be regarded as emerging subfields of research practice in HCI. Recent approaches to the design of public exhibition spaces have often made use of widely available input/output sensing technologies which support alternative strategies for the creation of novel interfaces and delivery of dynamic content. In light of such developments, the aim of this work was to explore the design of engaging experiences that would facilitate participation, collaboration and social interaction in a museum through the creation of technologically augmented artefacts. From the outset, a principle of the research was to ensure that any interventions were sensitive to and respected the natural aesthetic of the museum environment. Aims and objectives that were suitable for the research were first identified through design research, out of which a set of design principles that were specific to the museum emerged.Authentic artefacts which were suitable for the creation of novel experiences were identified and transformed over the course of an iterative design and development cycle. They were then brought into the museum for a case study, and their effects were analysed and discussed. The process, methods, and findings that were uncovered over the course of the research will be described in the thesis