Workshop with impact assessment in the chapel of the Magi in Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Florence Augmented reality with multimedia and cognitive technologies.

The first private chapel for which permission was granted by the Pope in the middle of the fifteenth century, in Palazzo Medici in Florence, frescoed shortly afterwards with the Procession of the Magi by Benozzo Gozzoli, recently becomes the setting for an experience of guided perception with the support of multimedia technologies and augmented reality in the workshop “Procession in time through to the splendor of the interior epiphany”. The research detect the psychophysiological response induced by the immersion in a enriched environment. The aim of the project is to integrate the aesthetic-historic philological studies relating to the artistic product and its genesis, directing attention at the response of the observer in relation to the aesthetic experience. The immersion itinerary is thus focused on the analysis of the observer’s capacity to enter into contact with the work of art through the sensory channels and on the manner in which this relation can be augmented. This fosters a phenomenological relationship with the work of art, and the relation in turn becomes the subject of research to detect the psychological and physical reactions, and in particular the emotional response. The visitors are involved in an impact assessment detected through the tools of qualitative and quantitative research, adopting the protocol already experimented in the project In the Mirror of the Wonder of Luca Giordano, supplemented by more advanced systems of scientific-cognitive analysis and supported by technological innovations that make it possible to detect biological parameters and cerebral mapping in real time. The research is articulated in a series of workshops that take place over two days. On the first day, the entrance test is followed by an introductory session in which Palazzo Medici Riccardi and the Chapel of Benozzo Gozzoli are presented through multimedia: videos are shown, along with 3D reconstructions of the architectural transformations that took place in the Baroque period, followed by the individual virtual tour of the Chapel in the Workshop of Lorenzo il Magnifico. Scheduled on the following day is the physical visit to the Chapel of the Magi dedicated to the phenomenological perceptive experience of this special place. The visitor is accompanied on the experiential itinerary by a sort of double vision, moving from the direct observation of the fresco to insight into specific details which are filmed and reproduced in 4K video format. This amplification makes it possible to add information both of a strictly cognitive kind (regarding the pictorial technique, the richness of detail etc.) and of an emotional-sensory nature. The visual and kinaesthetic aspects are accompanied by acoustics: five soundtracks have been composed, plus another for the meditative itinerary leading to the Chapel. These five musical tracks comprise three profane and two sacred, conceived to mirror the sections of the fresco itself, each being proposed in concomitance with the visitors’ perusal of the section it refers to. At the end of the second day the post-experience tests are performed. The project explores the relation between visitors and the work of art. Despite the complexity of its pilot project nature, the research demonstrated the feasibility of the working model and the possibility of detecting biological and physiological data. The acquisition of the psycho-physiological data makes it possible to continue the scientific research in this context of transdisciplinary analysis and tends to foster its further exploration for the study of benchmark parameters for the design and evaluation of virtual and real museum layouts.