Generative communication for cultural heritage. _Towards a new paradigm of resources

In the middle of this contemporary crisis culture, historic-artistic heritage, landscape and knowledge are seen as fundamental resources needed to re-launch our country. As a matter of fact, contrary to common belief, these resources are always subordinated to economic and financial values. Knowledge Economy and Knowledge Society are only pure statements. It is necessary to start from a radical redefinition of the terms “resource”, “sustainability” and “development” in order to overcome this stalemate. This essay aims to go in that direction. It starts with the relationship between intangible and tangible aspects of Italian products which have a unique “aura”, different from the products that come from other countries with a weaker historic-artistic-landscape identity. This “aura” is unique because it is related to the product but, more importantly, it is related to the chain system which produces it and the environment this product generates through the use experience it offers. Due to history past and present, Italians offer an indefinite number of “districts” or clusters of knowledge (these concepts must be deeply analysed). If they cooperate they can change themselves and their relationships, so that they continually generate one of a kind of organism which is complex and indefinite, but, at the same time unique: Made in Italy. Current models, such as smart cities or smart community experimentations, minimally take advantage of the real complexity and potential of this organism. The relationship between the historic-artistic-landscape heritage and the economic system deals with this research of irreproducible specificity and subjectivity and the strong need of being a local, national and international community. Italy is like a ship which is waiting for its fuel, waiting in a sea of… oil that it cannot even see and recognize. For this reason it is necessary to pass from communication of the product, to communication from inside the product itself. Under this prospective, new communication technologies, such as Augmented Reality, can make a fundamental contribution.