RE-LIVING LAS VEGAS: A multi-user, mixed-reality edutainment environment based on the enhancement of original archival materials

Abstract

The article describes Re-Living Las Vegas, a project focused on the underrated, and often untold, history of Las Vegas and three of its casinos, Sands, Riviera and Stardust, between 1955 and 1965, the so-called Golden Music Age of the city. The purpose of the project is to create a media-scalable system that can make historical archival materials free to be seen, touched, heard, manipulated, transported and even personalized by visitors, through the most cutting-edge virtual and augmented reality technologies. For this reason, technologies will be narrative-driven, serving as a transparent and user-friendly help to let visitors experience history while "edutaining" themselves. Furthermore, we will show how the specific case study can be used to create a framework where the same container, the technology, can be easily reused and adapted to different contents, the enhanced archives, and for different uses, like entertainment, education or cultural.