Miremus : A Theory of Mixed Reality Museal Spaces

Abstract

Museums create unique spaces filled with wondrous artifacts, witnesses to the history of nature and human civilization. Recent advances in spatial sensing, computing, and immersive displays are enabling numerous new possibilities to extend and interact with these museal spaces. An increasing number of works exploring such mixed realities reflect these developments; typically, their description entails the application of specific immersive technologies to a concrete exhibit. We propose Miremus  theory that abstracts and unifies the formation of mixed reality museal spaces. Spatial immersion and the process of cultural heritage communication are coalesced into one concise design space. We start by characterizing the flow of information utilizing a graph consisting of spatio-temporal locations and directed operations carrying information from one location to another. Then, we describe how spatial parts of information that are communicated from these locations can be mixed to form any museal space. The composition of such museal spaces can be distributed as well; tele-immersion concepts integrate seamlessly into the theory. Our exposition is focused on archaeological museums. To this end, the communication of uncertainty, which is inherent to these and similar types of museums, is a direct part of proposed abstractions. The theory ties into and interconnects existing work; we provide a discussion of various aspects of mixed reality museal space, which is structured along functional components such as organization, narration, interaction, and analysis.