Presence and aura of meaningful places

Jay David Bolter's earlier work on explaing what presence and aura is.

Following the abstract:

We propose the term aura to enrich the currentlanguage for designing and analyzing media experiences,especially when using augmented reality, mixed reality andubiquitous computing technology. Aura describes thecultural and personal significance that a place (or object)holds for an individual. An MR application can exploit aurato make the user’s experience more compelling oreducationally rewarding. Aura provides a necessarycomplement to the concepts of presence, which is commonlyused to evaluate VR applications, and of place, which refersto the more generic significance of places, particularly inCSCW applications. We use the Oakland Cemetery inAtlanta, Georgia to illustrate the concept of aura. Anumber of research questions about the relationship ofaura, presence, and place are suggested.

Keywords--- Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality,Presence, Aura, Cultural Heritage

pdf link:
http://www.yorku.ca/caitlin/futurecinemas/resources/coursepack/aura.pdf