Abstract:

Innova Patrimonio, financed by Lazio Region, aims at the tourist enhancement of the peripheral territory. A collaboration has been established among a research institute, CNR ISPC, a theatre, Teatro Potlach, and some creative companies of Lazio Region in Italy.

The activities of CNR focus on the conception of an innovative model of narration of the territory and its assets, in particular of ancient villages, fragile places where many things seem to be lost. This is also the case of Fara in Sabina, located between Rome and Rieti, where today less than 200 residents live and which is the subject of this experimentation.
The traditional descriptive approach of itineraries and monuments is replaced by a dramaturgical representation of stories, ways of life and imaginary dimensions that constitute the unique character and the deep life of a village. This hidden soul is shaped by acting, virtual reconstructions, mixed reality environments, projection mapping.

Many historical sources, related to tangible and intangible heritage have been collected and studied, together with the testimony of local people. They have been shaped in new educational processes, addressed to inhabitants, students, tourists, creative companies and scientific institutions working in the valorization of cultural heritage. In particular, during the pandemic period of Covid-19, many creative industries, like theaters, have been closed to the public and, in order to survive, they had to invent new approaches combining different media. In this case a scientific institution like CNR, a theater, creative industries traditionally working in the field of audio and video-guides for tourists, and a community of citizens joined their experiences mixing science, art, knowledge and technology. This combination has been helpful to each of one, to evolve towards new educational experiences and territories of experimentation, reinventing, in someway, their future.

The actors, through the characters who have created over many years for their shows, tell the story and life of the village and the character of its inhabitants. They meet and confront themselves with the inhabitants who continuously enter and leave the stories, bring their passions, jobs, trades and objects, sometimes rare, that they keep in their homes.

To make this magical dimension more alienating, we intervene with virtual apparitions and digital projections at urban scale.
For example, we create, in the village, a virtual show about Raffaello Sanzio; the civic archaeological museum "explodes" in video mapping in the outer space of the square. The objects of the Sabine and Roman civilization, digitized in 3D, are projected on the facades and enter into a relationship with the inhabitants of today, also filmed in video.

Cinema, theater and computer graphics merge in this new representation of the village, in which the community recognizes itself and its "habitat", but looks at it with new eyes, different from those of everyday life, eyes that surprise and react in unexpected ways. Fara thus becomes an "invisible city" remembering Calvino, a city made of stone and marble but also of filaments, curtains and mists.

This portrait of Fara will be soon available on an innovative app, a website, in a museum installation and in a medium-metrogram.
It will be a stimulus for tourists and inhabitants but also an exportable model for other historical villages.

Keywords:

Historical villages, Educational experience, media hybridization performing art, mixed reality, tourist enhancement, social inclusion