The Virtual Museum: How Technology and Virtual Reality May Help Protect and Promote Cultural Heritage

Virtual art is a vehicle that entails several advantages by spreading the value of cultural heritage in the widest possible way. To this end, a virtual museum on the Italian UNESCO sites was launched in December 2021 on the occasion of the first edition of the Sapienza-McGill seminar. It tries to portray the message of the Italian Renaissance and all the cultures and civilisations of the world inspired by the myth of Rome. This paper will highlight the different models of digitalisation used for the creation of the Virtual Museum on Cultural Heritage and analyse how they can promote the overall digitalisation of the cultural heritage sector. The research will also scientifically highlight the different digital art forms, digital techniques, and data and metadata used for the virtual museum. The museum will therefore also be presented at a scientific level as a balanced combination of different types of art (360°, 4D, video art) aimed at promoting and raising awareness, especially among the younger generations, of the importance of preserving, protecting, and promoting cultural heritage, particularly through digital transformation and reusing 3D digitised cultural heritage. Moving from this museum, this research will academically underline both the lights and the shadows of virtual art (also defined as ‘art within art’). The virtual museum, on the one hand, is an important vehicle for raising awareness about the importance of protecting cultural heritage. On the other hand, it is a form of virtual reality that has raised profound theoretical, aesthetic and epistemological questions about the virtual dimension. It can lead to a decrease in real-life tourism while having a psychological impact that is too strong on ‘virtual’ visitors. Furthermore, this paper will convey the concept of ‘emotional art’, intended from the point of view of the user, putting forwards an innovative analysis of the Art Director of the Museum.