Audiovisual Heritage definition
Audiovisual heritage refers to the collection of sound and moving image materials that capture and convey cultural, historical, and social information. It includes cultural products, such as films, radio broadcasts, music recordings, and other forms of multimedia, as well as the instruments, devices and machines used in their production, recording and reproduction, and the analog and digital formats used to store them.
Preservation and accessibility
Preserving audiovisual heritage is crucial because analog formats (like film reels, magnetic tapes, and vinyl records) are vulnerable to physical decay. Digital formats, meanwhile, face the risk of obsolescence as technology evolves. Preservation is only the first step though, since the process of digitizing and archiving makes these materials often difficult for the public to access. To allow the public to meaningfully engage with and understand the significance of each artifact, it is important to contextualize the artifact in a curated framework.
Reasons and methods to use Extended Reality
This is where Extended Reality (XR) comes in —an umbrella term that encompasses Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR). XR describes a complex branch of emerging technology that allows users to interact with content in immersive ways. XR can isolate users senses from their physical environment and allows them to experience (e.g. see and listen) to audiovisual heritage artifacts in a virtual space specifically designed for that purpose. This can be seen as a virtual counterpart to how museums thoughtfully design physical displays to best showcase their exhibits. XR also enables creators to craft narratives around artifacts, enhancing their cultural and historical value—a key area where XR shines.
Examples
One such example is the VR work “Notes on Blindness” [1], which allows users to listen to original audio recordings from the writer John Hull describing his journey into biological blindness. The XR work allows users to experience darkness while listening to the recording and in addition visualizes the narrative with a subtle yet decisive aesthetic.
Another example is the work “Traveling While Black” [2] which is a VR work documenting racial discrimination against African Americans in the United States. This work uses original audio and film excerpts, including interviews from people that lived through segregation or their descendants. Viewing this work from an immersive, first-person perspective in contrast to viewing it on a flat monitor gives the audience more affordances for critical engagement and self-reflection. Another great example is a VR work belonging to the exhibition called ‘The March’ at the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago, chronicling the historic events of the 1963 march on Washington [3]. The work contains recordings from Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic ‘I Have A Dream’ speech.
Limitations
Despite its potential, applied examples yet do not abound because there is significant expertise and cost involved in such productions. Limitations exist on hardware, software and HCI design aspects, and are gradually being addressed. Research work is being invested in design methodologies to streamline production and improved audience satisfaction. Practical issues, like hardware production costs and form factor discomfort, are being mitigated by commercial investments from major tech companies, like Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Apple, Meta, etc. Industry standards with cross platform support and legacy support, such as OpenXR, are another important factor for broader adoption. Finally, the audience’s familiarity and interest with this technology is increasing as it permeates more and more aspects of daily life.
Conclusion
It is clear that extended reality technology can transform how we engage with our audiovisual heritage – it can offer contextualization, it can situate both the audience and the artifact in a narrative framework, and it can offer more depth and nuance to our interactions. While there are still challenges, the limitations are steadily being lifted by efforts from a multitude of involved fields – evidencing the importance of this domain. We eagerly anticipate the next innovative steps from museums, galleries, research centers, studios and film companies worldwide.
Spyros Polychronopoulos
Research Manager at ADAPTIT and Assistant Professor at the Department of Music Technology and Acoustics of the HMU
