Onlife. Exhibit Design in the time of mangrove society

The paper focuses on onlife exhibit design, a design mode in which digital technologies, Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things, are integrated with exhibition design strategies that enable the interconnection of physical and digital spaces, trying to outline new innovative approaches by understanding how Extended Reality (XR) can create new levels of interaction between exhibit and visitor. Designing exhibits with an onlife perspective would create a circularity between the different interaction contexts: generating not only "enriched" paths for the public, but creating temporary exhibitions that thanks to "the introduction and technological advancement related to the diffusion of new technologies make it possible to experiment new levels of interactivity and involvement of visitors in the exhibition spaces" (Del Puglia S. 2022) An exhibition today is a conscious spatial arrangement of a more or less coherent set of objects which, on the basis of more or less succinct selection criteria, will enter into a documentary interrelation for the duration of the event. This interrelation, according to the intentions of the book Narrative Spaces, "will produce a cohesive narrative potential capable of giving the whole its expressive power and clearly addressing the audience. Other perspectives may of course be valid, but since the exhibition is the result of an interdisciplinary effort, we opted for a formula that involves all parties involved in the realisation of exhibitions, regardless of the conventions of the profession or the various backgrounds of the experts in the field. In this way, it is intended to establish a common central position that, for the sake of the medium itself, will push the boundaries and lead to greater collaboration between disciplines'. (H. Kossmann, S. Mulder, F. den Ousten, 2012) In order to investigate how the technologies is changing our lives, the philosopher Luciano Floridi coined the word Onlife, a neologism that serves to indicate that in most industrialised societies there is a fusion of online and offline, digital and physical. "These are not two distinct worlds but two inextricably intertwined layers that inevitably have strong repercussions on experience design as well." (Floridi L., 2017) Since 2004 Dotdotdot has been investigating and implementing strategies to create true experiential exhibitions, refining project after project their digital know-how in the service of storytelling; consolidating an approach to exhibition design and digitalisation by outlining new paradigms and proposing innovative types of storytelling and visitor experience. In Italy there are a multitude of small realities, such as archives, which through digital exhibitions can become an important means and resource to tell their story, their connection with a territory, their research activities and transformations that, without digital technologies and Interaction Design, would remain inaccessible. The ambition is to demonstrate how new technologies and communication methods can showcase any type of subject matter, making it accessible and comprehensible to everyone. By providing a more in-depth and focused contribution to the field, for find a new approach for emphasizes the potential to amplify the value of exhibition content. It confirms that experience and interaction are indispensable elements in the creation and successful engagement of an exhibition.