Pre/Absence: Prompting Cultural Awareness and Understanding for Lost Architectural Heritage in Virtual Reality

2025-10-09

AI Summary

Faced with the dual challenges of physical deterioration of architectural heritage and fragmentation of historical records, this paper addresses difficulties in cultural interpretation by proposing a VR narrative framework grounded in the dialectic of “presence–absence,” using the Tang-dynasty Hanyuan Hall of the Daming Palace as a case study. Moving beyond linear historical reconstruction, the framework integrates archaeological data, textual sources, and intangible cultural strata to enable user-driven, immersive meaning-making. Philosophical concepts are innovatively operationalized as design principles for VR storytelling, facilitating dynamic reinterpretation and critical reflection on the heritage’s socio-political significance. A mixed-methods evaluation demonstrates that, compared to print-based media, the VR experience significantly enhances users’ cultural awareness, affective resonance with loss, and deep understanding of diachronic shifts in heritage meaning—thereby validating its theoretical contribution to critical heritage studies and practical efficacy in experiential narrative design.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Game Design — Virtual Humans, NPCs and Autonomous Characters
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: (Computational) Cognitive Architectures
• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Diagnosis and Abductive Reasoning

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Web for democratic and emancipatory futures
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Explainable and interpretable methods for personalization
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics

Abstract

Lost architectural heritage presents interpretive challenges due to vanished structures and fragmented historical records. Using Hanyuan Hall of the Tang dynasty's Daming Palace as a case study, we conducted a formative investigation with archaeologists, heritage administrators, and visitors to identify key issues in current interpretation practices. We found that these practices often compress complex cultural layers into factual summaries and rely on linear narratives that overlook the continuing reinterpretations following a site's disappearance. In response, we designed Pre/Absence, a virtual reality experience grounded in the presence-absence dialectic to interweave tangible and vanished aspects of heritage within a spatiotemporal narrative. A mixed-method study with 28 participants compared Pre/Absence to a paper-based experience. Both improved users' factual understanding, but the VR experience more strongly enhanced cultural awareness, evoked emotional engagement with loss, and encouraged critical reflection on the evolving social and political meanings of heritage. The findings suggest that VR can move beyond static reconstruction to engage users as co-constructors of cultural meaning, providing a nuanced framework for critical heritage narrative design in human-computer interaction.

Problem

• Interpreting lost architectural heritage with vanished structures and fragmented records
• Addressing compressed cultural layers and linear narratives in heritage interpretation
• Enhancing cultural awareness and emotional engagement through virtual reality

Innovation

• VR experience based on presence-absence dialectic
• Interweaving tangible and vanished heritage aspects
• Spatiotemporal narrative for cultural meaning co-construction