From Readership to Usership and Education, Entertainment, Consumption to Valuation: Embodiment and Aesthetic Experience in Literature-based MR Presence

TL;DR

This paper explores how literary transportation in mixed reality enhances embodiment and aesthetic experience, shifting public engagement from entertainment to valuation in cultural heritage contexts.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach combining literary narratives with MR to deepen user embodiment and aesthetic engagement, advancing virtual museum models for cultural heritage.

Findings

Literary-based MR increases user embodiment and aesthetic response.

Shift from entertainment to valuation enhances cultural heritage engagement.

Proposes a new virtual museum model aligned with user-centered paradigms.

Abstract

This chapter will extend its preliminary scope by examining how literary transportation further amplifies presence and affects user response vis-\'a-vis virtual heritage by focusing on embodiment and aesthetic experience. To do so, it will draw on recent findings emerging from the fields of applied psychology, neuroaesthetics and cognitive literary studies; and consider a case study advancing the use of literary travel narratives in the design of DCH applications for Antiquities - in this case the well-known ancient Greek monument of Acropolis. Subsequently, the chapter will discuss how Literary-based MR Presence shifts public reception from an education-entertainment-touristic consumption paradigm to a response predicated on valuation. It will show that this type of public engagement is more closely aligned both with MR applications' default mode of usership, and with newly emerging conceptions of a user-centered museum (e.g., the Museum 3.0), thus providing a Virtual Museum model expressly suited to cultural heritage.