Virtual recreation of an interactive multimedia art installation from 1977

This paper presents the work in progress carried out at the Centro di Sonologia Computazionale (CSC) of the University of Padua on the reactivation of the interactive art installation “Autoritratto per 4 camere e 4 voci” by Italian video artist Michele Sambin. Interactive multimedia art installations are a particular cultural heritage that, due to their complexity and heterogeneity, needs specific preservation strategies for conservation and access. In this context, we believe it is useful to explore the use of Virtual Reality (VR) as a way to document this kind of installations, fostering a dissemination that takes into account the complexity of the work and the interactive nature of the visitor experience. We performed the reactivation by exploring two distinct approaches to preserve and recreate the artwork: the migration of the artwork, which uses modern technologies while maintaining the original concept, and a complete virtualization of the installation in VR. The main objective of this work is to analyze and compare the advantages and disadvantages of the two different reactivation modalities, thus offering an in-depth perspective on the aesthetic, technical, and conceptual implications of both approaches.