Last modified: 2012-02-08
Abstract
The aim of "Matera Città Narrata" (Matera: Tales of a City) project is the creation of a digital platform able to support the public before and during the visit of Matera (Unesco World Heritage since 1993), through the access to cultural contents while attending places, sites, itineraries.
It does not consist in a descriptive traditional guide inspecting monuments and mentioning who made them and when. On the contrary it tells the stories that took place in those ancient sites, real fragments of life, myths, events, characters, memories, also involving local people.
Several contents have been developed: 3D reconstructions, videos, multimedia, virtual reality environments, audio guides, declined according to different communicative formats to be implemented for different and multiplatform devices. 3D reconstructions show the evolution of Matera and its landscape through the time, in eight different ages: the emersion of lands from the sea more than two million years ago, the terrain and “gravina” development, the birth of the first neolithic entrenched settlements (5000-4000 b.C.), the diffusion of the life in the caves, the construction of the “built” and fortified space in the Middle Ages, the expansion from the Civitas to Sassi suburbs, from Sassi to the planar area where the modern and contemporary city developed.
The main components of the platform are:
1) the web site, accessible in remote and from smartphone, where it is possible to enjoy narratives, to make specific researches or to download different kinds of materials usefull during the successve visit of the city;
2) cultural contents and applications for mobile devices (phones, smartphone, iPad) with different operative systems (iOS, Android, Symbian, Java).
In this way every user can reach cultural contents in a simple way, choosing the communicative format he prefers and supported by the technolgy he owns. The access is totally free for public.
The project has been realized by CNR ITABC and supported by the Regional Promotion Agency (APT) and the Basilicata Regional Government’s Department of Manufacturing/Production Activities,
The paper will describe the contents and the technological infrastructure.