Augmented Entanglement of Narrative Chronotopes and Urban Territories

Dimitrios  Makris; Maria  Moira

doi:10.25038/am.v0i20.335

Authors

Dimitrios Makris
Maria Moira

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i20.335

Keywords:

augmented reality, aesthetic experience, aesthetic engagement, novels, urban place

Abstract

The complex conditions of urban places render it difficult to identify and perceive their multivariate aesthetic characters. The question examined herein is in which ways digital media like Augmented Reality (AR) can facilitate a more comprehensive aesthetic appreciation of a place by individuals, enhance their overall experience and allow them to recognize the aesthetic distinctiveness of places that may be phenomenologically dense with aesthetics, memory, meaning, legibility. The framework proposed is founded on the inherent power of novels as chronotopes of potential dialogical experiences and on four characteristic strategies of AR.

Narrative chronotope singularities are fundamental sources for understanding the collective, cultural, historical, social and spatial practices, leading to an understanding of urban environments. So the first step is to extract narrative chronotope analysis content from a novel’s urban substance (buildings, roads, squares), characters, plot and sequence of events. The second step involves a three-dimensional re-creation of urban heritage components. Finally, the AR media is interwoven with the novels based on four strategies: reinforcement of aspects of real-world urban places by digitally overlaying the novel’s setting; recontextualization to achieve the semantic transformation of places as the novel’s significance and meanings are revealed; remembrance by facilitating the emergence of diverse identities and memories; and re-embodiment through achieving a deeper understanding and re-interconnectedness with the aesthetic aspects of urban places.

Augmented narrative descriptions restore harmony between body-mind-environment and fiction while ensuring that different times, places and psychological situations coincide. The proposed novel-based digitally-mediated interaction could provide a shift that leads to the embodiment, enhancement and re-conceptualization of the diverse aesthetic dimensions of constructs such as ‘heritage monuments’, ‘local community’, ‘public place’, etc.

Article received: April 2, 2019; Article accepted: July 6, 2019; Published online: October 15, 2019; Review article

Author Biographies

Dimitrios Makris

Dimitrios Makris
School of Applied Arts and Culture, University of West Attica, Athens
Greece

Dimitrios Makris is an assistant professor at the Department of Interior Architecture – University of West Attica. His research field includes theories and methodologies of computer-aided design. His particular interests include natural language narratives to the three-dimensional scene; different aspects of digital media for virtual and augmented reality; and digital modeling that includes reverse design, three-dimensional laser scanning and structure-from-motion modeling of reality. In the department of Interior Architecture he teaches ‘Computer-Aided-Design Methodologies’. In the postgraduate program “Interior Architecture: Sustainable and Social Design” where he teaches ‘Generative product design Topics’. He is visiting professor in the Department of Conservation of Antiquities and Works of Art, where he teaches ‘Analog and Digital Capture Techniques’ and in the postgraduate program ‘Conservation of Cultural Heritage’ he teaches ‘Digital Three-dimensional Representations’. He is collaborative professor in the inter-institutional (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and University of West Attica) postgraduate program “Museum Studies”.

Maria Moira

Maria Moira
School of Applied Arts and Culture, University of West Attica, Athens
Greece

Maria Moira is an assistant professor at the Department of Interior Architecture – University of West Attica, where she teaches ‘Spatial Narratives’, ‘Landscape architecture: Space, memory, culture’ and ‘Architectural interventions in historic buildings: Methodology and interpretation of history’. In the postgraduate program “Interior Architecture: Sustainable and Social Design” where she teaches ‘Design interventions in the urban public space / social design’. Her research interest lies in the relationship between literary representations and the city. She has participated in many conferences and also she has written articles in scientific magazines and collective books. She is a regular collaborator for issues related to space and literature in the section ‘Readings’ of ‘Avgi’ Sunday newspaper. Furthermore, she has participated in the scientific team ‘Interdisciplinary Critic’.

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i20.335 DOI: https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i20.335