Multisensory Museums, Hybrid Realities, Narration and Technological Innovation: A Discussion Around New Perspectives in Experience Design and Sense of Authenticity

This paper focuses on the topic of multisensory museums, conceived as extended or hybrid realities where real and digital coexist to offer cognitive and emotional engaging experiences to the public and increase the sense of authenticity. Multisensory communication can increase accessibility, as it conveys the content through multiple perceptual channels, and it can solicit more inclusive, participatory, and creative audience engagement through the stimulation of emotions. A methodological approach to digitisation, communication strategies, interaction, creative storytelling, immersive technologies and accessibility issues are discussed in depth, in relation to novel museological practices. Machine learning and generative AI are opening new scenarios in management practices and decision-making processes, in data analyses and in natural language processing, and in the creation of customized content addressed to the audiences. A short overview about how these algorithms evolve and work is presented, considering challenges, threats, expectations and ethical implications they pose. Another topic is the sense of authenticity. How is it changing in today users? How phygital realities, storytelling and user experience design in museums can influence it? The paper will discuss these issues, presenting also some case studies, which have cultural, social, philosophical, and ethical implications, at a time when museums are redesigning their role in a society undergoing profound transformation.