Name: Digital Technology, Heritage & Wellbeing: Insights from the SPARKS Project
Start: 2026-03-09T13:00:00+00:00
End: 2026-03-09T14:00:00+00:00
Location: London Metropolitan University | room T8-04

Digital Technology, Heritage & Wellbeing: Insights from the SPARKS Project

Digital Technology, Heritage and Wellbeing: Insights from the SPARK Project
About this Event

In recent years, digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual and immersive environments, and 3D digitisation have increasingly been adopted to support the enhancement, communication and educational use of cultural heritage. Beyond their technical potential, these tools are progressively framed as cultural and pedagogical mediators, capable of reshaping how heritage is accessed, interpreted and shared. When combined with participatory and learner-centred methodologies, digital technologies can foster inclusive access, support sustainability goals and promote users’ wellbeing, while encouraging active, critical and socially situated engagement with both tangible and intangible heritage.
Within this framework, the seminar presents the SPARK project as a case study exploring the integration of AI-driven systems, Digital Storytelling and Object-Based Learning in the context of early cinema heritage. SPARK focuses on Cabiria (1914), a famous Italian movie widely regarded as the first colossal in cinema history, using advanced digitisation and immersive technologies to design personalised and inclusive digital heritage experiences. The project resulted in a virtual exhibition based on 3D-digitised heritage objects and in a geolocated, also remotely accessible, digital itinerary centred on Mount Etna, where key scenes of the movie were shot. Both experiences are delivered through the SPARK platform, which integrates AI-based profiling mechanisms to adapt content to users’ characteristics and specific educational needs.
The project included extensive testing phases conducted in situ at Mount Etna with local schools, assessing user experience, digital and citizenship competences, and perceived wellbeing. A subsequent testing phase in the Rome area introduced further technological developments, including haptic gloves and holographic projection, again involving schools to evaluate the added value of these innovations.
The seminar will present the SPARK project across its different phases and discuss selected results from the experimental activities, highlighting its contribution to digital heritage education, participatory practices, and sustainable cultural engagement.The seminar will also introduce Empirical Museum Studies. Measuring Cultural Heritage Impact, a recently founded academic journal dedicated to the empirical investigation of museum and cultural heritage practices, with a specific focus on impact assessment, evaluation methodologies and evidence-based approaches within the cultural sector.