Digital cultural communication: designing co-creative new media environments

The design and implementation of audience-focused immersive media-rich physical environments is a familiar landscape within the commercial sphere. From theatre and theme parks to autoshows and airports, commercial interdisciplinary design and production teams have extended and solidified the new media agenda. The success of this track record is demonstrated by the increasing presence of commercial design techniques and knowledge in the creation of immersive new media within the cultural sphere, as proven by London's Natural History Museum, or the Melbourne Museum.This paper introduces the notion of digital cultural communication, a continuum through which designers can consider the place of narrative and experience and their attributes within public and commercial institutions. Digital cultural communication allows users to become co-creators of knowledge by providing tools and methods which enable the co-construction of creative artefacts. This paper uses a case study from Australia's rich cultural institution sector to illustrate the conceptual design of new media co-creative environment using an HCI-derived methodology supported by participatory action research. It is hoped that this method will demonstrate to curators of cultural experiences the cost-effective possibilities for enabling audiences to create rich narrative from user-led content.