Actors in VR storytelling

Virtual Reality (VR) storytelling enhances the immersion of users into virtual environments (VE). Its use in virtual cultural heritage presentations helps the revival of the genius loci (the spirit of the place) of cultural monuments. This paper aims to show that the use of actors in VR storytelling adds to the quality of user experience and improves the edutainment value of virtual cultural heritage applications. We will describe the Baiae dry visit application which takes us to a time travel in the city considered by the Roman elite as "Little Rome (Pusilla Roma)" and presently is only partially preserved under the sea.Comment: Pre-print versio

Virtual reality technology and physical distancing: A review on limiting human interaction in tourism

While the COVID-19 pandemic has been influencing almost all industries since the end of the first quarter of 2020, its impact appears to be more prominent in the tourism industry. Extant research emphasizes that this effect will continue and individuals abstain from travel to avoid being among other people. To maintain physical distancing and recover the tourism industry, virtual reality technology has been adopted to give travelers the opportunity to visit certain destinations and try products or services, which can be a useful tool to consider physical distancing in tourism. Further to this, this research reviews that tourist destinations and tourism businesses such as accommodation, food and beverage, and museums can utilize virtual reality technology to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Furthermore, COVID-19 can be seen as a chance for both the industry and the destination to market their products and services. Therefore, this technology will be extremely helpful for the revival of tourism post-COVID-19

THE INCLUSIVE DYNAMICS OF ISLAMIC UNIVERSALISM: FROM THE VANTAGE POINT OF SAYYID QUTB\u27S CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY

This article pursues a topological reading of Milestones, one of the most influential books in the history of Islamism. Written by Muslim thinker Sayyid Qutb, the general interest in this crucial text has largely remained restricted to the fields of Islamic Studies and Security Studies. This article aims to make the case for assuming a philosophical standpoint, relocating its significance beyond the above-mentioned fields. A creative and topological reading of this text will allow the spatial complexity of Qutbs eschatological vision to be fully exposed, while also unpacking the way in which antagonistic relations have variously been articulated by this thinker. The underlying conviction is that such an examination can offer new perspectives from which to examine and develop current debates on political universalism and antagonism in the tradition of continental philosophy

The Cathedral of Being: Re-enchantment and the Writings of the Popes

A rarely discussed issue that bears upon the topic of education is that which takes seriously the relationship between medium and message; how is the content of what is taught shaped by the way in which it is taught? It is a question of especial pertinence today when in all areas of pedagogy we find people advocating the use in education not only of computers but on-line access and the wonders of the virtual world as well. The argument of this paper, via the writings of the recent Pontiffs (and more secular authors with a philosophical and political interest in the area), is that the use of computers and on-line technology is deleterious to all education, but especially to Catholic education. This is because, while the understanding of real presence and mediation are fundamental to the faith, the idea of insubstantiality and friction-free immediacy are of a piece with virtual technology. As a medium of dissemination the latter cannot help but invest the content of the former with its understanding of presence. The paper also touches upon the economic factors at play in the use of virtual technology as well as the utopian hopes this technology gives rise to, hopes that are fundamentally inhuman and therefore at odds with the Catholic faith. The paper argues its point using the trope of fairyland and the opposition between, on the one hand, enchantment, and on the other, glamour

Digital Theology: Is the Resurrection Virtual?

Many recent writers have developed a rich system of theological concepts inspired by computers. This is digital theology. Digital theology shares many elements of its eschatology with Christian post-millenarianism. It promises a utopian perfection via technological progress. Modifying Christian soteriology, digital theology makes reference to four types of immortality. I look critically at each type. The first involves transferring our minds from our natural bodies to superior computerized bodies. The second and third types involve bringing into being a previously living person, or person who has never existed, within an artificial digital environment. The fourth involves promotion of our lives into some higher level computational reality

Avatars and Lebensform: Kirchberg 2007

Several years ago, after a decade of experiments in the software industry, I returned to academia and found philosophy colleagues troubled by the term “virtual reality” — a term which enjoys wide usage in the ?eld of immersive computing but which raises hackles in post-metaphysical philosophers. Some vocabulary in this paper may create similar unease, so a warning may be in order. What makes sense to software engineers may for philosophers carry too much baggage. Words like “empathetic” or “empathic” may cause similar discomfort for those with an allergy to Romanticism. While these adjectives associated with poets like Wordsworth, the term “empathy” belongs equally to software designers and video-game artists who use it to describe the opposite of “?rst-person shooter” software. Empathic, as opposed to “shoot ‘em up” software, encourages the exchange of viewpoints beyond ?rst-person perspective and may even merge several perspectives. Rather than deepen a user’s ?rst-person point-of-view, empathic software offers a socializing experience, and in fact, is sometimes called “social” software, “Net 2.0,” or “computer supported cooperative work.

New communication practices on the radio and in the audiosphere

For the past decade or so, internet radio, podcasts, mobile sound apps, and digital libraries of audio content have enjoyed increasing popularity among researchers and receivers of culture. Radio, similarly to other traditional media, often experiments with the opportunities offered by the new media technologies enabling the emergence of new communicational practices. As a starting point, I consider the contemporary audiosphere, which constitutes the auditory part of the audio-visual culture, and the influence of technological changes on radio communications, artists, and receivers. I attempt to answer the question, what happens at genre fringes? What are the characteristic features of the emerging forms? How, when one is faced with new technology, the multimedia world, and virtual reality, can one reach a reflection on the fiction and non-fiction genres on the radio? The expansive character of new technologies is often the source of inspiration for that which is traditional, thus renewing the object of its study. The inclusion of new phenomena within the widely understood auditoriness has a rescuing nature for traditional forms, and, at the same time, offers new opportunities for creators, and thus an area of research for literary scientists, media scientists and literary critics

Archaeological Sites and Local Renaissance: Enlightening Italy’s Inner Rural Areas The Case Study of the 21 Villages in the Madonie Park, Sicily

: In Italian inner rural areas, archaeology emerges as the thread that connects past and present, revealing the cultural and historical roots of often overlooked small villages. These settlements, like the Madonie District and its 21 villages, nestled in picturesque landscapes, hold archaeological treasures that, if properly rehabilitated and valorized, can trigger a social, economic, and cultural revival. Archaeology can play a pivotal role in reigniting the vitality of these communities with the contribution of technological innovation. Using augmented and virtual reality and emerging technologies, it is possible to immerse oneself in antiquity and have immersive experiences that allow the perception of inner rural areas history in new ways that revitalize existing sites but also enable the experience of what no longer exists, digitally reconstructing structures and realities lost over the centuries. This can attract visitors eager to uncover the authentic charm and intrinsic history of these places and can transform them into smart villages