Increasingly, museum visitors engage with bricks and mortar museums using digital technologies: from audio guides, to smart phones, from digital installations to screens for explanation. New technology allows us to evaluate textures of artefacts, and recreate models and sculptures with almost pin point accuracy.

Along with these emerging technological movements, an overarching term an overarching term “phygital” has been proposed...that conceptualizes the blending of the physical and the digital, in so far that they do not simply complement, but rather reinforce each other. Accordingly, the term “phygital” was coined...to denote how everyday objects are connected to their environment, gathering the information and adapting their performance accordingly without human intervention.

How does the use of technology aid in conveying stories? Eslam Nofal has developed a model for Phygital Heritage which is reproduced below. This model focuses on how heritage information can be communicated to visitors in more engaging, educational, and meaningful ways through the simultaneous and integrated interaction of the physical and the digital. The digital tools he places in his model map onto digital practices of museum storytelling. Click on the hotspots below to discover each element of the model. For a further exploration of the phygital, see Unit 4 of this course.

Phygital heritage model, mapped along two characteristics; the physical affordance of information and the level of situatedness of how this information is communicated (Nofal et al, 2017)

The Digital Modalities in Museum Space Engagement

Picking up from the Phygital Engaement model, Merel van der Vaart is a city history curator at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (City Museum of Schiedam). Over the past ten years, she has worked with a number of museums across Europe on projects that build bridges between collections and people using digital tools. In her research, she has examined the interplay between visitor, object and interactive media. She has particularly focused on the way digital installations influence visitors' engagement with the physical objects on display. In this video, we asses the impacts of digital installations and storytelling on audiences, further reflecting on the future of digital innovation in museums. 

An expert interview with Merel van der Vaart (YouTube)

References

• Nofal E., Reffat R.M., Vande Moere A. (2017). Phygital Heritage: an Approach for Heritage Communication. The 3rd Annual International Conference of the Immersive Learning Research Network (iLRN2017). Coimbra, Portugal, 26-29 June 2017, pp. 220-229, DOI: https://doi.org/10.3217/978-3-85125-530-0-36
• Van der Vaart, M., & Damala, A. (2015). Through the Loupe: Visitor engagement with a primarily text-based handheld AR application. 2015 Digital Heritage, 565-572. doi:10.1109/DigitalHeritage.2015.7419574