VR applications, new devices and museums: public's feedback and learning. A preliminary report

Between the 15th of September 2005 and the 15th of November 2005, an exhibit on virtual and Roman archaeology was organized in Rome inside the Trajan's Market Museum. The event, “Building Virtual Rome” (“Immaginare Roma Antica”), was a great opportunity to show, inside an ancient monument, and for the first time together, many different projects, applications and installations about VR and Cultural Heritage. The uniqueness of the event was at the same time an occasion both for visitors and organizers to live a new experience, and to face some problematic aspects due, mainly to the meeting of high technological projects (some of them still at research level), cultural contents and also archaeological “containers”. During the exhibit we tried to observe visitors and make some interviews, aimed at understanding their expectations at the beginning, their experience during their visit and finally their satisfaction/ dissatisfaction, learning, feedback, and interaction level during and after the visit. The preliminary results of this analysis are showing that the embodiment and the diverse difficulties to use different devices and software depend on many factors and that “communicating” the virtual is not a technological issue, but an epistemological question.