Smart technologies in the museum environment. AR experiments on physical models at the Museum of Oriental Art in Turin

The concept of Smart Tourism has developed rapidly within the Smart Cities paradigm, which emerged at the beginning of the new millennium in various scientific fields. Museums, traditionally centres of cultural and technological dissemination and display, are becoming places to experiment with smart technologies (digital survey, AR, VR, digital fabrication, and AI) for analytical purposes and to enhance the visitor experience. This technological revolution affects the way museum visitors interact with cultural heritage. This process is part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and is based on multiple technologies that blend physical and virtual environments. These tools have shown benefits for accessing, comparing, and understanding space-related information about artefacts and advantages in developing compelling forms of storytelling aimed at visitors. Trying to give an overview of the technologies used, which have some relevance to the disciplinary field of representation, one can talk about digital acquisition techniques, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, digital fabrication, and artificial intelligence. The models obtained with different digital acquisition techniques allow new ways of content fruition. Both virtual and physical outputs aim to increase the inclusiveness of collections, meeting the various needs of users related to age, physical, sensory, cognitive, cultural, and experiential factors. The paper presents the outcomes of some experiments conducted in Museo d'Arte Orientale of Turin aimed to explore the continuum between real and virtual in the museum field through intelligent technologies. The experiments illustrate how to integrate AR technologies into the enjoyment of content, inside and outside the museum, with the support of real models.