CULTE

In a context where the digital revolution deeply changes the way people access information, museums are bound to bring forward new ways of discovering and interacting with the heritage they promote. The CULTE (Cultural Urban Learning Transmedia Experience) project aims at helping this necessary transition by proposing landmarks and methods for the conception of a transmedia experience, both fun and pedagogical. The CULTE project is an industrial research project, with a 36 months duration. Its main axis is the axis 5, related to usability studies; and its secondary axis is the axis 1, regarding the chain of production and the spreading of content. It gathers four partners with complementary skills: - LUTIN, a laboratory dedicated to usability studies; - CEDRIC (Interactive Media & Mobility team) a group of researchers interested in interactive applications, specifically in the domain of transmedia and pervasive games; - Mazedia, an agency responsible for the design of a platform dedicated to transmedia gaming projects; - and Musée du Quai Branly, a museum heavily involved in the growing presence of transmedia inside museums, and that will constitute the key location for the experiments designed during the project. CULTE plans to rethink the concept of cultural mediation and the way people interact with pieces of art. The main goal is to guide people during, before and after the tour, as well as to help geographically distant people to access the museum collections. With this goal in mind, we propose to design a transmedia and pervasive serious game. This game will be based on the musée du quai Branly's experience and it will be built progressively with constant feedbacks from the public to ensure possible adjustments. This will lead to provide a framework to help the design of transmedia and pervasive serious game for cultural heritage that will also help reducing the costs associated to such a production. More precisely, CULTE puts forward the following objectives: - a device inside the musée du quai Branly as a proof of concept, as well as some experiments outside the museum; - a usability study to put into evidence the pedagogical benefits of this new cultural experience; - the design of a model for a transmedia and pervasive serious game, with the inclusion of augmented reality both audio and visual; - some generic elements of game design in order for non programmers staff members to design and launch such a game; - the active participation of other museums in order to assess the implementation of the device inside other cultural locations; - an evaluation committee with experts in transmedia and digital technologies for museums. To summarize, the CULTE project aims at expressing recommendations for the design of transmedia serious games, through the definition of generic and methodological elements, as well as the collection of usability data. At the heart of this project lies the act of sharing experience and knowledge. The participation of different cultural institutions to this project, the organization of regular seminars as well as an international conference at the end of the project, and the publication of a book summarizing the results, are the most salient aspects of our desire to provide guidance to cultural institutions.