The Digital Diorama project: a new way of exploring dioramas from outside of the museum setting

Natural history museums are special places, but often little frequented by the inhabitants of larger Italian cities. We have therefore developed interactive multimedia interfaces called digital dioramas (see our website: www.digitaldiorama.it) with the aim of presenting museum dioramas to the broader community as part of a shared cultural heritage. The digital dioramas mainly rely on visual contents such as photos and videos and offer four different levels of exploration. Their core feature is a set of crossover topics: starting out from individual elements of a digital diorama, users have the opportunity to encounter a series of living things linked to a common ecological theme. Some of these examples are also related to aspects of everyday life. This non-linear type of exploration can help users to develop both a new method of learning and a systemic perspective on the reality that surrounds us. The knowledge promoted by the digital dioramas concerns museums, dioramas as key museum resources and the complexity of the planet’s natural environments