A journey into the Hades in the Hypogeum of Cerberus: The Spatial Augmented Reality experience | Digital meets Culture

Text and images by Donato Maniello (Studio Glowarp, Academy of Fines Arts-Naples, Italy, multimedia contents)

This work discussion is a hypothesis of reconstruction of the missing part of the frieze of the Hypogeum of Cerberus located in Canosa di Puglia (Bt), Italy. The narration is considered difficult because of the particular fragility of the pigments, by the strong visual fragmentation or by the complete lack of pigments. This work wants to show the potentialities of SAR (Spatial Augmented Reality) technology in order to make visible the ancient polychromies, thus providing interesting perspectives of use for video mapping.

In recent years, the academics have always been more and more interested into the study of the polychromies of ancient works and aware of their value. However, the audience who visits the museums it’s not aware of it, ignoring the fact that the white marble of the statues and buildings it’s not what we can call a stylistic choice but evidence of the flowing time. The collective imagination that has always considered white as the supreme colour of the ancient sculpture needs now to re-considerate its position facing with an interdisciplinary approach, that allows to revaluate and better appreciate the pieces of the ancient sculpture and its decorations, being aware of the importance that the colour had in that times. It is therefore important to use forms of communication that make possible to highlight the colour appearance of the original works in the eyes of the final users, pieces kept into our museums object of precise studies.