“Oh that. We just took some undergraduate history students on board as interns. They provided the content and it was done.”

The co-founder of a digital heritage initiative promoting interactive user interfaces offered these opening remarks. Speaking at a Delhi-based museum, he had been asked about the information provided to users as they moved their hands across an interactive board, revealing images and narratives relating to the Indian freedom movement.

His response clarified that the physical and digital components of such installations – for example, the 3D-modeling software and hardware, scanning equipment and its resolution and the user interface – were more carefully designed and calibrated than the content they provided.

Contemporary cultural heritage is rife with digital innovation. The Covid pandemic accelerated this transformation as archivists and curators worked to develop content that would reach remote, locked-down audiences. Within significant limits, digital platforms can democratise and facilitate access to materials previously inaccessible. Instead of being physically siloed, digitised material – as data components and not just content on culture – can be reproduced, combined, and circulated infinitely to achieve a reach previously considered impossible.

Accessibility and malleability remain one of the great boons of digital formats. But here, we consider the information economy of cultural heritage...

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