Sense of Place: The Phenomenology of Virtual Heritage Place

This paper examines the critical importance of time to the experience of place and argues that time-based virtual heritage creates more engaging and affective virtual places supporting rich learning opportunities for heritage audiences. It examines the experience of place, heritage place and virtual place as instanced in state-of-the-art computer games. It discusses the use of heritage visualisation for public edification and the advantages of, and concerns related to, computer generated visualisations. It reports on a number of time-based virtual heritage projects that illustrate the power of time-based virtual heritage to create affective, memorable and educational experiences for the general public. The paper concludes by arguing that time-based virtual heritage supports richer virtual heritage places, both phenomenologically and culturally, and that these in turn offer engaging, affective and memorable experiences creating learning opportunities for the general public.