Can new technologies replace the experience that cultural heritage sites and museums essentially offer?

Abstract

When visiting cultural heritage sites and museums, we rely on our senses in perceiving the world around us, especially architectural and artistic sensations. Even though empirical foundation can often be deceitful, it represents the stimulus we form a response to and what ultimately becomes our memory of the space. With our whole world being constantly digitalised, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, our personal and work relationships mostly became linked to technology. The aim of this paper is to question new technologies' use (Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Natural Interaction, Metaverse), values and dangers recently underlined in the public discourse, as well as whether heritage sites and their users thrive in virtual surroundings at all. Using the Stimulus-Organism-Response model, this paper investigates whether the past still has a future in the traditional, formal sense. The main question is: What is the cultural significance of heritage in a virtual world and is digital heritage possible, or is this an oxymoron? The conclusion suggests that new technologies' use should be carefully and moderately carried out and limited to several situations.