Technology meets Culture: from MUSE to EPOCH

This paper reviews the research carried out over nearly a decade (2000-2008) within an Italian project and a European Network of Excellence to enhance visibility and understanding of museums, landscapes and archaeological sites. The project - called MUSE (MUseums and Sites Explorer) - was carried out within the Italian National Research Program on Cultural Heritage Parnaso. MUSE devised solutions to offer a new level of perception to the visitors on-site, without jeopardizing their emotional involvement. The Network of Excellence - called EPOCH (Excellence in Open Cultural Heritage) – had the mission of “Overcoming fragmentation in Cultural Heritage” and addressed the entire chain of actors involved in Cultural Heritage related activities. One of its workgroups named “Mobile and Ambient Systems” researched viable solutions to increase visibility of museums, landscapes and archaeological sites. Increasing understanding and visibility imposes conflicting requirements on system design. This paper shows how these requirements were handled in both research initiatives and it envisages a roadmap to turn Cultural Heritage sites into ecosystems of interacting objects that support discovery and delivery of high quality, situation dependent Cultural Heritage services. Such services will adapt to profile, activity and location of cultural tourists, fostering serendipity and understanding of the territory heritage.