La ricerca della giusta imperfezione. App AskGate

The research moves into the experimentation of digital technologies applied to cultural heritage, which are identified in the field of virtual archaeology, consciously conducting a choice of means and therefore of the most appropriate graphic languages able to guarantee a communication and dissemination of scientific knowledge. The work has conducted to the realization of the app called AskGate, a challenge of the dissemination point of view starting from the results obtained by the Italian MAECI International Archaeological Mission of the same name. The research group composed of architects, archaeologists, physicists and artists since 2020, has been involved in the case study of the so called church of St. Mary in Viridis, inside the ancient city of Ascalona (Israel). The main problem confronted was, therefore, to identify a language capable of expressing the process of scientific research, which would engage the user and lead the visitor on the archaeological plane to discover the excavations that took place. The theme of representation adopted for the app entrusts the narrative in its significant parts to the eloquence of the image, respecting the gestalt related to the use of the smartphone. Drawing and representation in the digital environment must submit to technical rules, caused by the limitation of the medium, but even more due to an expressiveness with a high degree of accessibility both internally, for proper interdisciplinary communication, and for dissemination aimed at promoting the cultural asset to the general public. We leave the classical canons of two-dimensional representation, however never abandoned, to make architecture legible in its inherent spatial aspect. Therefore, the need arises to adopt the visual code where the three-dimensional quality in the round, would reach the expressiveness of the spaces and architectural forms studied. Specifically, a visualization is searched for that promotes the greatest characterization of the experience, such as to trigger a personal relationship with the multimedia product. The app has is not only exploratory, but also educational-scientific purpose. T he correctness and truthfulness of the contents shown allow for a realistic view where the principles of digitization of cultural heritage specified by Jakob Nielsen in 1995 are respected. Precisely for this aspect, it was chosen to design the app using a graphic language starting from hand drawing, looking for that natural imperfection of the stroke to trace an expressiveness closer to the user.