Immersive Installation: “A Virtual St Kilda”

This paper discusses a Virtual Histories project, which developed a digital reconstruction of St Kilda. St Kilda is the most remote and western part of the United Kingdom. It was evacuated in the 1930s and lay empty for several decades. It is a world heritage site for both built and natural environment . The Virtual St Kilda acted as a focus for the collection and presentation of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. It was on show as an exhibition in the Taigh Chearsabah museum (Figure 5) located in North Uist Scotland. The exhibition is built around the OpenSimulator Open VirtualWorld server using commodity hardware. The simulation covers some 4 square km of virtual space, and models both tangible and intangible culture. It is integrated into an exhibition and articulates an interpretation of the St Kilda legacy through the prism of contemporary North Uist life