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Stille Nacht: COVID and the Ghost of Christmas 2020
- Source :
- Heritage, Volume 4, Issue 4, Pages 172-3097, Heritage, Vol 4, Iss 172, Pp 3081-3097 (2021)
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- MDPI AG, 2021.
-
Abstract
- Annually, there are between 2500 and 3000 Christmas markets in Germany. While purported to be rooted in century-old tradition, the current concept of the markets, shaped in the 1930s, gradually transformed from primarily mercantile operations to experiential events. The experiential dimension is a collection of visual, auditory, and olfactory components that create a compound sensory response: the ‘Christmas atmosphere’. The prevalence of COVID-19 meant that traditional Christmas markets were largely absent from the festive calendar in Germany in 2020, disrupting the usual sensory experiences associated with these events. A review of the online presence showed that augmented markets and virtual reality were subsequently utilized in an attempt to re-create the experience and the ambience of the traditional markets, but had limited interactivity with many of the senses. We explore to what extent these multiple-sensory components may have been lost during the Christmas period of 2020 due to the COVID-19-induced transition from the traditional multisensory live market to a predominantly online experience, and highlight problems which arise through the documentation of such complex intangible heritage.
- Subjects :
- Archeology
History
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
Online presence management
Materials Science (miscellaneous)
Transition (fiction)
COVID-19
Conservation
Atmosphere (architecture and spatial design)
computer.software_genre
Experiential learning
Interactivity
Documentation
Archaeology
intangible heritage
Aesthetics
virtual reality
German Christmas markets
computer
CC1-960
Period (music)
multisensory interactions
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 25719408
- Volume :
- 4
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Heritage
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....354b50fcd65f59011ed9efbd5b551996