ABSTRACT
Over the past decade, there has been an increasing awareness of architectural and spatial design in the creation of distinctive visitor experiences, including through the growing significance of theories of presence. This issue has itself become more complex as digital technologies offer new potentials to mediate between museum content and visitors. Against this background, this chapter aims to explore the role of spatial layout in digitally mediated experiences that must be lived at that time and space in museums. Among the key questions raised are: how are digital sensory experiences embedded in the physical space of the museum? How does the arrangement of space coupled with the adoption of digital technologies create new immersive experiences that support various forms of presence and co-presence? Through the in-depth study of examples of the museum work of two well-established creative studios that combine architecture and interaction ─ Jason Bruges Studio and United Visual Artists ─ and using spatial analysis and the concepts of space types, integration, and visibility, this chapter will show that it is the combination of various dimensions of digital technologies and the exploitation of space that generates different forms of spatial presence and co-presence, which are part of the way the museum creates immersive effects, provokes embodied and affective responses.
