COST STSM Scientific ReportCOST Action TD1406

Innovation in Intelligent Management of Heritage Buildings (i2MHB)

STSM Topic: The use of Digital Tools in interpretation centers and their impact on the visitor experience

STSM Researcher: Tony Cassar, UOM - Media Knowledge and Digital Arts, Msida (MT), Malta, tony@cyberspace.com.mt

COST STSM Ref. Number: COST-STSM-ECOST-STSM-TD1406-37156

Period: 2017-04-25 to 2017-04-30

Location: Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, Ramat Gan (IL),

Host: Rebeka Vital, rebekavital@gmail.com

REPORT:

Scope of scientific mission: “Tony Cassar graduated in 1999 with Honors in Bachelor of Commerce with specialization in Management and Marketing. He is currently reading a Masters by research in the field of digital tools in interpretation centers. He is an MC member in Cost action TD1406 related to innovation in Intelligent Management of Heritage Buildings. For the last 23 years he has led his own company specializing in multimedia design, with the last 8 years focusing on interactive systems for museums.

During the planned scientific mission with the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, Mr. Cassar researched how digital tools are being used in Interpretation centers in Israel. The research looked at the extent that such tools are used in specific locations, the reactions of the visitors to such tools and how such tools improve or not the experience to the interpretation. This is a report that summarizes the research that was carried out .

This intensive short site visit to Israel carried over 6 days allowed me to visit various important historical places in Israel and discover ways how digital tools were being used to engage visitors to such sites. The following report is in the form of a daily diary highlighting the sites visited. Visiting so many sites in such a short visit was only possible with the valuable assistance of my host as well as the liberty to move around was possible only by driving around the country.

25th April – Tel Aviv Shankar College of Design

Shortly after having arrived in Tel Aviv Ben Gurion airport following an early morning direct flight, I picked up the rented car and drove to Shenkar. Design. Engineering. Arts where I met my host Prof. Rebeka Vital. The college is situated in a heavily urbanized location since it is located in a built up area of town, and part of it incorporates a redeveloped old cotton processing factory.

Over the years “Shenkar - Engineering Design Art” has become one of the leading colleges in Israel. I was welcomed by Professor Vital who toured me around the college and explained how every year, graduates from Shenkar find attractive positions in research and the industry, exhibit their works, participate in competitions and win prestigious awards.

Prof Vital gave me an overview of the different Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees offered through the different faculties. The college has 2 main faculties: engineering and design. These two specialties allow Shenkar to offer a unique multidisciplinary offering to students and academics. This allows them to study and work with cutting-edge technologies combined to contemporary design and artistic concepts. Students are exposed to a wide variety of disciplines from the three different faculties.

Founded in 1970 Shenkar was originally known as the “College for Fashion and Textile Industry”. It was setup with the main aim of providing Research and design Services and skilled workers for the Israeli Industry. Various academic degrees including PhD programs are offered in design and engineering at Shenkar today.

One of the departments I was very much interested in was the Department of Visual Communication headed by Mr. Dekel Bovrov. The department encourages students to use modern digital tools such as Web, Smartphones, e-Books, Tablets, GPS and VR systems as well as many day to day digital gadgets to create an immersive visual and communications world.

Whilst being shown around the college I could not help but notice the every innovative approach in creating a very relaxed atmosphere for students even though the college does not have access to large green open spaces being located in the middle of a heavily urbanized area. The library itself was redesigned by an ex-student of the college, who despite the limitations faced specially related to budget, managed to create a very unique and user friendly study environment.

Acre

In the afternoon I had a long discussion with Prof Vital about a number of case studies which Shenkar was involved in. We focused primarily on two specific projects which I was planning to visit in the following days. The first was the restoration project in Old Acre, a joint research project conducted by `Shenkar and the University of Milan. Acre is a UNESCO heritage site and it is one of the oldest port cities in the world. It is thus important to preserve the many different era artifacts which can be found here. The research project used state of the art equipment including photogrammetry and laser scanning. The application of such technologies in this project highlighted the benefits of new digital documentation technology. 3D imaging allows more accurate research and restoration of historical buildings. Apart from our discussion into the technologies used, we even discussed more practical social aspects of the project relating to how the inhabitants of old Acre reacted to the project. The challenges faced by historical heritage sites which are also inhibited environments and not simply an open air tourist site.

Masada

The digital documentation project of Masada was another case study which we discussed in detail. The ancient fortification (Hebrew: metsada "fortress") is located in the southern district of Israel on the very top of an isolated plateau overlooking the Dead Sea. Herod the great built a fortified palace on the mountain between 37 and 32 BCE. The site has a very strong symbolic meaning to the Jewish nation as it was the site of a siege by Roman Troops. The siege ended with a mass suicide of the Sicari rebels and their families who preferred to die rather than surrender to the Romans.

This research project carried out over a 3 year period, used laser scanning technology and aerial as well as ground photogrammetry to document the whole archeological site. This research project used different documentation methodologies and by comparing them analysis the different pros and cons of each methodology. The project also deals with data management of complex databases which in turn can be used for a better understanding of an archeological site.

26th April – AcreMy visit in Acre focused primarily on the Hospitaller Fortress in Old Acre. The fortress is built on northwestern section of the city, adjacent to the northern wall of 12th century Acre. This magnificent building is rich in history as it played a very important part in the crusades.

The Hospitaller Order, which thrived in Jerusalem during the First Crusader Kingdom (1187-1099) transferred its headquarters to Acre during the Second Crusader Kingdom (1291-1191). The Hospitaller, who had a quarter there during the First Kingdom, returned to Acre, expanded their headquarters and rebuilt the site, which consisted of two to three floors around a central court as well as underground sections – water reservoirs and a sewage system. It was not the entire site that was excavated; to date, an area of about 5000 m2 was excavated, which encompasses the central court and the northern, eastern and southern wings. The western wing has yet to be excavated. Visitors of the site will primarily be exposed to the remains of the first floor of the Hospitaller headquarters since the upper floors were destroyed by the Muslim conqueror and the ravages of time. The Ministry of Defense's Underground Prisoners Museum is currently located above the archeological site.

Acre's Hospitaller quarter houses three main buildings: the headquarters (Knights' Halls); St. John's Church south of the headquarters (now a municipal community center in the Ottoman Saraya House); and the hospital south of the church that is yet to be excavated.

The Akko Hostel – knights Youth Hostel, in which I was staying is built on a historical site which is still accessible to visitors. This is an excellent example of how heritage sites and commercial actives can coexist but even create added value to each other. Multilingual audio posts installed around the archeological ruins allow visitors to understand what they are seeing and help visitors appreciate better the site they are standing on.

As I walked round the fortress I was particularly interested in the innovative audio guiding system used which is location activated. As the visitor walks around the different halls and buildings, numbers on the floor invite the user to approach them, once in close proximity the visitor’s audio guide is automatically activated with the narration in the language of choice of the user. The system probably activated by some form of RF id tagging or GPS location had various advantages.

The stickers on the floor indicate the path that the visitor should follow but the visitor does not have to interact with the audio guide as this is activated automatically as the visitor walks around.

This system is very user intuitive and extremely simple to use. There is practically no user intervention to activate the narrative at the different points. All that the visitor has to do is walk around the heritage site, explore the different rooms and exhibits and once he is in proximity of such displays the audio guide is activated. In areas where there are multiple points of interest multiple numbers would be displayed on the floor which are extremely easy to follow.

The interpretation center uses other forms of digital tools to enhance the visitor’s experience. These include projections in the form of animations and storytelling. Such animations are excellent to attract the attention of visitors of all ages.

A multimedia projection room allows visitors to watch a 10 minute video about the history of Acre over the centuries. The documentary shows an artist putting together a collage which represents the various layers of history of Acre. Again what has impressed me most in this video documentary is the simple and clear way how such information is passed on to the visiting public of all ages.

Visitors are also invited to try various hands on games (which although not digital tools directly) are a very interesting feature of how visitors can be engaged with historical displays.

27th April – Cesarea MaritimaCaesarea Maritima  is an Israeli National Park in the Sharon plain, including the ancient remains of the coastal city of Caesarea.

The city and harbor were built under Herod the Great during c. 22–10 BC near the site of a former Phoenician naval station. It later became the provincial capital of Roman Judea, Roman Syria Palaestina and Byzantine Palaestina Prima provinces. The city was populated throughout the 1st to 6th centuries CE and became an important  early center of Christianity during the Byzantine period, but was mostly abandoned following the Muslim conquest of 640. It was re-fortified by the Crusaders, and finally slighted by the Mamluks in 1265. The ruins of the ancient city, on the coast just about 2 km south of modern Caesarea, were excavated in the 1950s and 1960s and the site was incorporated into a new national park in 2011.

Static sites all over the heritage site explain in English and Hebrew. These are very low tech but the site has other digital tools which make a visit to Cesarea Marittima very interesting. These include an onsite projection room which shows a documentary about the heritage site in various languages.

The site also offers a VR experience which allows the visitors to “see” a virtual port and city, viewing how the city looked like in ancient times. I did not get a chance to view the VR experience.

28th April – Jerusalem

This was my first visit to the city of Jerusalem. I was impressed by the modern part of Jerusalem full of beautiful hotels and top fashion brand shopping malls. But what really impressed me was the old city of Jerusalem. The city is seeped in millennia of history, cultures and religions all living together in such a small place. The city does not offer any particular digital tools to help you explore it, though I did use some apps for site recommendations.

One particular app which I found very useful both to drive around Israel but even to find my way within Jerusalem itself was an app called Sygic. This app which does not require internet data to be activated allows you to use a very accurate GPS navigation to find your way around.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a church in the Christian Quarter. The church contains, according to traditions dating back to at least the fourth century, the two holiest sites in Christianity: the site where Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, at a place known as "Calvary" or "Golgotha", and Jesus's empty tomb, where he is said to have been buried and resurrected. The tomb is enclosed by the 18th-century shrine, called the Aedicule. Unlike other cathedrals in Europe there are no digital tools to help the visitor explore the church. There are no audio guides or signage available. I was lucky enough to

follow a guided tour which gave basic explanation of the different parts of the church and exhibits.

The Western Wall or Wailing Wall is a relatively small segment of a far longer ancient retaining wall, known also in its entirety as the "Western Wall". The wall was originally erected as part of the expansion of the Second Jewish Temple, begun by Herod the Great, which resulted in the encasement of the natural steep hill known to Jews and Christians as the Temple Mount, in a large rectangular structure topped by a huge flat platform, thus creating more space for the Temple itself and its auxiliary buildings.

My visit to the Western wall and the synagogue nearby was a unique experience but lacked explanation. Had I not research the site and traditions before I would have been a very uneducated spectator. The site offers no digital tools which I could use such as audio guides or information displays.

After the Six-Day War, the Ministry of Religious Affairs began the rigorous process of uncovering the entire length of the Western Wall.  The Western Wall Tunnels were finally excavated almost twenty years later. In spite of the numerous obstacles this project initially proposed, archaeologists were able to uncover 2,000 years of Jerusalem’s rich

history.  These discoveries included ancient cisterns, aqueducts and remains of the Herodian road which ran parallel to the Temple Mount. 

It was by the entrance of the Western Wall tunnels that I discovered a Virtual Reality experience called “A Look into the past. This unique, innovative, and exciting experience uncovers the architectural beauty, enhanced by Levites singing, and highlights the glory of the place that was the heart of the Jewish nation.

The Second Temple was the cultural and spiritual center and pilgrimage destination of the Jewish people. Our sages tell us that whoever had not seen the Temple had not seen a beautiful building in all his life. The Temple was destroyed about 2,000 years ago, but continues to play a central role in Jewish identity and in the story of Jerusalem.

Using state-of-the-art technology, the Western Wall Heritage Foundation has now made it possible for visitors to see the Temple. This groundbreaking project combined the skills of researchers, animation and computer experts, and artists who created this computerized, detailed, and precise view of the Temple. Special goggles and chairs that swivel allow visitors to have a 360° perspective of standing at the Temple as it was many centuries ago.

The narration accompanying the experience provides in-depth and fascinating information about the glory days of ancient Jerusalem. Don’t miss this enveloping and interactive virtual-reality experience.

29th April – Masada Dead Sea

The visit to Masada was quite challenging as it was boiling hot, but totally worth the trip. The fotress is built on top of a ligh mesa which I reached via funicular. I could immediately appreciate the huge ammount of excavation and restoration work which the site has undergone as well as visiualise the project explained to be on my first day in Israel by Prof Vital.