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Augmenting Archives, Agency and Authenticity: A Case Study of Using WebXR to Resurrect the Lost City of Dunwich

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This research explores the ghost stories of Dunwich, the city that fell into the North Sea, through a series of practice-led online open-access interactive storytelling experiments which archive the lost and vulnerable environmental heritage of Dunwich, also known as The Lost City. By developing a toolkit for working with virtual heritage and WebXR to rebuild the Lost City via the ghost stories of Greyfriars, this research addresses how working with open-source software and repositories can improve the sustainability of virtual heritage and what impact XR (Extended Reality) technologies have on the UX (User Experience). Starting with an investigation into WebXR a potential workflow and new methodology are proposed for developing virtual heritage exploring ideas around video games, media archaeology and critical fabulation to create sustainable and accessible virtual heritage.

Keywords: Critical fabulation ; Extended reality ; Immersive Storytelling ; Media archaeology ; Sustainability ; Virtual heritage

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Augmenting Archives, Agency and Authenticity: A Case Study of Using WebXR to Resurrect the Lost City of Dunwich
Intellect , 171 (2026); https://doi.org/10.1386/9781835952962_10
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References

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References

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  3. Bucher, John (2018), Storytelling for Virtual Reality: Methods and Principles for Crafting Immersive Narratives, London: Routledge.
  4. Caspar, Luke and Youkhana, Sandra (2022), Videogame Atlas: Mapping Interactive Worlds, London: Thames and Hudson.
  5. Chang, Alenda (2019), Playing Nature: Ecology in Video Games, Minnesota, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
  6. Champion, Erik (2021), Virtual Heritage, London: Ubiquity Press.
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  8. Coverly, Martin (2020), Hauntology, Harpenden: Oldcastle Books.
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  10. Dazed (2022), ‘Hans Ulrich Obrist on how video games are revolutionising the art world’, https://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/56316/1/hans-ulrich-obrist-interview-worldbuilding-gaming-art-digital-age-exhibition. Accessed 10 November 2024.
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  17. Hartman, Sadiya (2008), ‘Venus in two acts’, Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, 12:2, pp. 1–14, https://doi.org/10.1215/-12-2-1.
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  20. Jeffrey, Stuart, Jones, Siân, Maxwell, Mhairi, Hale, Alex and Jones, Cara (2020), ‘3D visualization, communities and the production of significance’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 26:9, pp. 885–900, https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2020.1731703.
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  22. Kalay, Yehuda and Marx, John (2006), ‘Architecture and the internet: Designing places in cyberspace’, First Monday, https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v0i0.1563. Accessed 10 November 2024.
     [Google Scholar]
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  24. Laurel, Brenda (1990), The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design, Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley.
  25. Lay, C. H. (1939), A Dunwich Tapestry, Ipswich: East Anglian Press.
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  27. Microsoft (2023), ‘OpenXR’, https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/mixed-reality/develop/native/openxr. Accessed 10 November 2024.
  28. Mintel (2021), UK Virtual Reality Market Report 2021, https://store.mintel.com/report/uk-virtual-reality-market-report. Accessed 10 November 2024.
  29. Murray, Janet (2016), Hamlet on the Holodeck, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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     [Google Scholar]
  31. Parikka, J. (2012), What Is Media Archaeology? Cambridge: Polity.
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  32. Pujol-Tost, Laia (2007), ‘3D modelling and visualisation’, CAA, 10, pp. 101–07, https://tobias-lib.uni-tuebingen.de/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10900/62055/31_Pujol_CAA2007.pdf?sequence=2. Accessed 18 September 2025.
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  33. Rodney, Harrison (2013), Heritage: Critical Approaches, London: Routledge.
  34. Rosner, Daniel (2018), Critical Fabulations: Reworking the Methods and Margins of Design, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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  37. Statista (2023), ‘Global smartphone penetration rate as share of population from 2016 to 2021’, https://www.statista.com/statistics/203734/global-smartphone-penetration-per-capita-since-2005/. Accessed 10 November 2024.
  38. The Playful Mapping Collective (2016), Playful Mapping in the Digital Age, Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures.
  39. Thomas, Douglas and Brown, John Seely (2009), ‘Why virtual worlds can matter’, International Journal of Learning and Media, 1:1, pp. 37–49, https://doi.org/10.1162/ijlm.2009.0008.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. UCL (2012), ‘What is multimodality?’ https://mode.ioe.ac.uk/2012/02/16/what-is-multimodality/. Accessed 10 November 2024.
  41. WebXR (2022), ‘WebXR device API explained’, https://github.com/immersive-web/webxr/blob/master/explainer.md. Accessed 10 November 2024.
  42. Zielinski, Sigfried (2006), Deep Time of the Media, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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