Suwen Wang
Exploring Affective Communication In Experimental Museology Through AI-Based Transmedia Storytelling
Summary
Abstract
In the current landscape of cultural heritage exhibition, especially within museums, sensory immersion is often prioritized over emotional resonance and affective communication. This has contributed to a disconnect between visitors and the deeper cultural, historical, and emotional narratives embodied in artifacts.
This research proposes a new interdisciplinary framework for multisensory, emotionally responsive heritage storytelling, situated at the intersection of affective communication, experimental museology, and AI-based transmedia storytelling. Through a practice-based research methodology that combines both online and in-situ ethnographic fieldwork, structured interviews, observational analysis, and iterative design practice, the study explores how AI-enhanced augmented reality (AR), narrative text, voice and sound design, and 3D modeling and animation can be integrated into heritage communication systems.
By translating culturally specific meanings into emotionally resonant experiences, the research foregrounds the affective dimensions of historical loss, dislocation, and memory. The aim is to address what this study defines as the “heritage empathy gap”—the failure of conventional display methods to foster empathetic, culturally situated understanding.
It repositions digital storytelling not merely as a tool for interpretation, but as a form of affective cultural restitution, capable of restoring narrative agency to displaced artifacts and fostering a deeper sense of empathy and relational accountability between audiences and heritage. Ultimately, this project contributes a scalable framework for emotionally engaging and decolonial heritage experiences in the 21st century.
在当代文化遗产展示，尤其是博物馆的展览实践中，感官沉浸体验往往被优先强调，而情感共鸣与情绪传播则被忽视。这种倾向导致观众与文物所承载的深层文化、历史和情感叙事之间产生了断裂。本研究提出了一个新的跨学科框架，旨在构建多感官且具情感响应性的文化遗产叙事方式，该框架融合了情感传播、实验性博物馆学以及基于人工智能的跨媒介叙事方法。
通过结合线上与线下民族志田野调研、结构化访谈、观察分析与迭代式设计实践的实践导向型研究方法，本文探索了如何将AI增强的增强现实（AR）、叙事文本、声音设计、语音叙述以及3D建模与动画有效整合进文化遗产传播系统中。本研究通过将具有文化特异性的意义转化为可感知的情感体验，凸显了历史性失落、文化迁徙与记忆中的情感维度。
研究旨在回应本研究所界定的“文化遗产同理心鸿沟”问题——即传统展示方法未能激发观众具有文化情境理解的情感共鸣。它重新定义了数字叙事的角色，不仅仅是解释工具，更是一种情感文化修复的方式，能够赋予被流散文物以叙事能动性，并促发观众与文化遗产之间更深层次的情感共鸣与关系责任。最终，该研究为21世纪的文化遗产传播提供了一套具可扩展性、富有情感参与力与去殖民视角的实践框架。
Additional info
Artist Statement
Suwen Wang is a London-based artist and design researcher whose practice lies at the intersection of AI, digital storytelling, and cultural heritage. He holds an MA in Digital Media Arts and is currently pursuing an MRes in Communication Research at the Royal College of Art, UK. His work reimagines how immersive technologies and narrative systems can reconnect displaced cultural artifacts with their emotional, historical, and geographic contexts.
Suwen’s practice critically explores the “heritage empathy gap”—the emotional disconnection between audiences and artifacts severed from their original settings. Through AI-generated voice, text, and sound, combined with AR and 3D spatial media, his work transforms silenced objects into expressive narrative agents. By doing so, he challenges static museological displays and proposes new models of digital restitution, emotional engagement, and cross-cultural communication.
Rather than positioning AI as a neutral tool, Suwen treats it as a co-author in the storytelling process, capable of mediating memory, identity, and loss. His installations humanize fragmented histories and raise awareness of cultural displacement, illegal trafficking, and the politics of representation. In doing so, he blends algorithmic processes with curatorial sensitivity to create participatory, affective experiences that foster dialogue across global audiences.
As a researcher, Suwen investigates how design can restore narrative agency to marginalized objects and communities, offering new frameworks for inclusive digital heritage practices. His work advocates for emotionally intelligent systems that are culturally situated, ethically grounded, and publicly engaged.
王苏文是一位常驻伦敦的艺术家与研究者，拥有英国皇家艺术学院 (Royal College of Art)数字媒体艺术硕士学位，目前在皇家艺术学院继续攻读传播设计研究硕士（MRes）学位。他的创作实践通过观察、分析性探究与实验性媒介，关注被忽视的社会政治和人际关系动态，探索艺术如何通过参与式、分布式的形式介入社会政治议题。
在数字艺术与互动媒体的交叉领域，王苏文将“人工智能驱动的数字叙事传播”作为重新想象叙事权力结构的工具。他的实践质疑人工智能如何打破线性史观、放大边缘群体声音，并通过新兴的、非等级化的叙事方式实现叙事民主化。与传统艺术中的被动观看体验不同，王苏文的互动系统通过将社会政治批评嵌入算法过程，挑战艺术商品化的逻辑，转而提出艺术应成为一个与公众互动并持续演化的有机体。
作为研究者，王苏文将设计视为检视替代性价值体系、信念结构与理想的一种媒介，并通过交互设计将其具象化。他的研究旨在激发艺术家与公众之间关于新兴技术的社会、文化与伦理影响的对话，质疑这些技术如何塑造集体的未来愿景。
Figure of Manasā,
South Asia, 12th Century, At The British Museum.
“What is ‘returning’ when even rivers, change their courses? My last koan is written, in shipping labels and conservation reports”.
Figure of Buddha,
China 550-577, At The Victoria and Albert Museum.
“What is ‘returning’ when even rivers, change their courses? My last koan is written, in shipping labels and conservation reports”.
Wish Fulfilling Cow,
South Asia 20th Century, At The Victoria and Albert Museum.
“I am not artifact, not goddess, just female and breathing. Singing old lullabies, the single teardrop that warps the grain”.
Foreign Envoy From an Imperial Tomb,
China 1400-1600, At The Victoria Albert Museum.
“The potter's thumb pressed life into me he said "for eternity.” But no one told him eternity would smell like museum glue”.
Shakyamuni,
China 1740-1786, At The Victoria Albert Museum.
“They molded my lips to preach without sound, yet no one kneels where my altar was ground”.
Seated Figure of A Bodhisattva,
South Asia 9th Century, At The Victoria Albert Museum.
“They molded my lips to preach without sound, yet no one kneels where my altar was ground”.
