Conveying Intangible Cultural Heritage in Museums with Interactive Storytelling and Projection Mapping: the Case of the Mastic Villages

Spatial Augmented Reality (SAR), as implemented with projection mapping, is part of mixed-reality technology with numerous applications in the cultural domain. In museums, interactive projection mapping has been exploited to superimpose virtual content on exhibited artefacts, offering users various hybrid ways to interact with the artefacts’ physical and digital content. For this reason, it has been widely used in the context of architectural heritage to promote culture and raise awareness about historical buildings or landscapes by visualizing significant elements they convey. This paper presents the design, development, and iterative user evaluation of an interactive projection mapping installation for the Mastic Museum on Chios island in Greece that promotes UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage. The installation affords tangible interaction to activate the video projections presented in a storytelling manner on a 3D-printed scale model of a representative historic settlement exhibited inside the museum. The concept of this installation aims to connect the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of mastic and the related villages with narration and vivid illustrations. Three evaluation phases took place during the development at the lab and the museum, informing UX, learning, and design considerations.