Search Results (8)

In the context of rapid global digitalization and evolving media ecologies, sustainable cultural communication has become central to both museum transformation and the theoretical renewal of iconology. Images, as vital carriers of cultural memory and identity, are shifting from static, linear presentations to generative, interactive, and participatory modes enabled by digital platforms. This shift calls for a new paradigm in image communication—one that integrates meaning construction with technological and user-centered logics. This study adopts a “technology–culture–user” framework, drawing on constructivism, cultural memory theory, and symbolic interactionism to construct a digital-era iconological system. Through comparative analysis of the Chinese Palace Museum and the National Museum of Korea, the research reveals complementary approaches: the former emphasizes structured, authoritative knowledge dissemination, while the latter prioritizes immersive, user-driven interaction. These differences provide a basis for cross-cultural cooperation. Accordingly, the paper proposes five collaborative strategies: integrating advanced technologies, building shared image resource systems, enhancing user engagement mechanisms, expanding East Asian visual symbol networks, and adapting institutional frameworks to diverse cultural contexts. These strategies aim to support both theoretical innovation in iconology and sustainable regional cultural communication in the digital age. Full article

The memory palace, a mnemonic technique from ancient Greece, remains widely used for memory competitions and learning. This study introduces a procedurally generated virtual memory palace combined with the Worlds-in-Miniature (WIM) interface in virtual reality. WIM enhances spatial perception by providing a miniaturized visualization of the memory palace and enabling instant movement between locations. Focusing on recognition memory, an experiment with 40 participants was conducted to measure memory performance under conditions with and without the WIM interface. Each participant memorized 30 target images within a procedurally generated memory palace and completed a recognition task distinguishing targets from non-targets. Data included immediate recognition performance and follow-up assessments at 7 and 14 days to evaluate long-term retention. The results showed that the WIM interface significantly improved recognition memory, particularly among participants with lower initial success rates. By providing spatial structuring, WIM facilitated stronger memory associations, leading to enhanced recall accuracy and sustained long-term retention. This method demonstrates the potential of VR memory palaces as effective tools for supporting memorization-based learning in education and training contexts. Full article

Virtual reality (VR) is a 3D space created by computer graphics technology and immersive devices. In addition to providing a new visual experience, users can also interact with others in the virtual world to address any of their needs. In recent years, the application of virtual reality in the field of education has attracted the attention of more and more people. This study combined virtual reality and concepts of spatial memory in wayfinding and memory palace to develop a VR memory maze learning system based on the seven large-scale expedition voyages of Zheng He (1405–1433) in the early Ming Dynasty of imperial China. The objective is to improve memory and efficiency in learning social science by correlating spatial information and organizational skills in the virtual environment. A teaching experiment has been conducted to explore its impacts on learning effectiveness, learning motivation, and cognitive load, as well as learners’ technology acceptance of the VR system. The analysis results indicate that using the VR system for learning social science can improve learning effectiveness; it can also increase learning motivation and reduce cognitive load. The questionnaire results of the technology acceptance model analysis show that most learners were satisfied with various aspects of this system. Full article

Animal combats (venationes) were a popular entertainment in the Roman world. Splashy panels of inlaid marble (opus sectile) commemorate these bloody contests in several buildings in and around Rome. Among the most well-known are survivals from the 4th century CE Basilica of Junius Bassus and, several decades later, the marble-revetted hall from Porta Marina at Ostia. On the face of it, the wall decoration from these sites memorializes typical Roman activities, but the panels expose the vast geography implicated in these combat spectacles. The brilliant stones used to render them came from lands as far off as the Caspian tigers and Asiatic lions they depicted. The iconography of the panels was also foreign: the animal combat, or symplegma (intertwining), is seen on works from pre-Achaemenid sculpture to Sasanian textiles, and most recognizably, at the Achaemenid palace at Persepolis, where a lion attacks a bull in relief on the Apadana stairway. Reading these panels through a Persianist lens illuminates the ways in which the Persepolitan model animated Roman themes and visual programs. Though they recalled events in the Roman arena, they also imparted political and astrological signification to the decoration by means of their Persian associations. By alluding to the Achaemenid empire, a great power of the past and a continuing rival in the form of the Sasanians, the Roman patron accrued to himself some measure of the veneration for this culture and showed himself able to communicate in an idiom legible to an international clientele. Full article

Flaminio Rota was a 16th century anatomist and medical figure at the University of Bologna. He was highly praised, despite his poor scientific production. As a matter of fact, Rota competed with scientific activities in different anatomical arguments, but he did not publish any important research. Nevertheless, we know the principal results of his scientific activity because indirect information can be found in other publications, where some of his studies were emphasized by his contemporary colleagues. Henning Witte even mentioned Rota as a very famous Italian medical figure, together with Galilei and Santorio. On the other hand, Rota was a highly esteemed teacher. The best evidence of his recognition is well-documented in the Palace of Archiginnasio in Bologna, where Rota’s teaching activity was praised with six memorial epigraphs. In the south-eastern outskirts of Bologna, there is an 18th century villa, including a more ancient annex, that belonged to Rota. At this location, the upper parts of the walls and the ceiling are decorated with a pictorial cycle illustrating medical scenes. In this paper, we theorize regarding his scientific thinking by analyzing the pictorial cycle he commissioned. Full article

Passenger flow is an important benchmark for measuring tourism benefits, and accurate tourism passenger flow prediction is of great significance to the government and related tourism enterprises and can promote the sustainable development of China’s tourism industry. For daily passenger flow time series data, a passenger flow forecasting method based on convolutional neural network (CNN) and improved quantile regression long short-term memory network (QRLSTM), denoted as CNN-IQRLSTM, is proposed with reconstructed correlation features and in the form of sliding windows as inputs. First, four discrete variables such as whether the day is a weekend and holiday are created by time; then, a sliding window of width 42 is used to pass the passenger flow data into the network sequentially; finally, the loss function of the sparse Laplacian improved QRLSTM is introduced for passenger flow prediction, and the point prediction and interval prediction results under different quartiles are obtained. The application of quantile regression captures the overall picture of the data, enhances the robustness, fit, predictive power and nonlinear processing capability of neural networks, and fills the gap between quantile regression and neural network methods in the field of passenger flow prediction. CNN can effectively handle complex input data, and the improved nonlinear QR model can provide passenger flow quantile prediction information. The method is applied to the tourism traffic prediction of four 5A scenic spots in Jilin Province, and the effectiveness of the method is verified. The results show that the method proposed in this paper fits best in point prediction and has higher prediction accuracy. The MAPE of the Changbai Mountain dataset was 0.07, the MAPE of the puppet palace museum dataset was 0.05, the fit of the Sculpture Park dataset reached 93%, and the fit of the net moon lake dataset was as high as 99%. Meanwhile, the interval prediction results show that the method has a larger interval coverage as well as a smaller interval average width, which improves the prediction efficiency. In 95% of the interval predictions, the interval coverage of Changbai Mountain data is 99% and the interval average width is 0.49. It is a good reference value for the management of different scenic spots. Full article

This study sought to uncover (1) the disagreement of spatial conflict between urban heritage and surrounding urban structure using two case studies from Korea—the main gate of the royal palace (Gwanghwamun) and the urban park containing celebrity graves (Hyoch’ang Park)—and (2) whether digital heritage restoration may mediate spatial conflict. A historical literature review and field surveys were conducted, with three main findings. First, the place identity of Gwanghwamun and Hyoch’ang Park, rooted in the Josŏn Dynasty, was seriously damaged during the Japanese colonial period. Although there were national attempts to recover the place identities of these sites during the modern period, limitations existed. Second, the restoration of Gwanghwamun’s Wŏltae (podium) and the relocation of Ŭiyŏlsa (the shrine of Hyoch’ang Park), which involved spatial transformation based on heritage, emerged in conflict with their surrounding urban structures—we identify a spatial conflict between local residents and stakeholders’ memories and the histories of these sites. Third, Donŭimun (the west gate of the city wall of the Josŏn Dynasty) digital restoration is a case mediating the conflict by restoring a sense of place in a virtual space and activating the cultural memory of the public by showcasing properties. Full article

In this article, I examine the representational strategies used to visualize the pratima (deity) of the Hindu goddess, Durga, as a paradigm of time, memory, and corporeal identity, in Rituparno Ghosh’s 2000 Bengali film Utsab. I analyze the body as a dynamic site of memory-formation that shapes new histories in the sprawling colonial palace in which the film’s narrative unfolds with an ancestral Durga festival as its focal point. To this end, I look at how the body of the goddess produces and defines the transience of human experience, the fragility of material history, and the desire for historic relevance. Full article