Elisa Bonacini is an Archaeologist, with a first degree in Classics (2001) and a second in Archaeological Heritage Enhancement (2010). specialized in Classical Archeology (2005). She has a first PhD in Humanities and Cultural Heritage (2014) and was a Researcher (2015-2017) at the Department of Humanities of the University of Catania for the Digital Enhancement of Cultural Heritage. She is due to discuss her second PhD in Lenguas Y Culturas (October 2022) at the University of Córdoba on “Digital Narrative as a Teaching Tool for Transmission and Cultural Enhancement”.
Since 2017, she has been a Visiting Adjunct Professor for IDEx, the University of South Florida Institute for Digital Exploration and worked as a project manager for USF on a digitization project in Sicily for three years (2017-2019).
Elisa is an expert in digital cultural communication: she was an EU external expert for the Europeana project and worked as a cultural media consultant for UE PO-FESR projects in Sicily (Castello Eurialo archaeological sites in Syracuse and Santa Venera al Pozzo, near Catania). It also developed some pilot projects (Archaeological Museum “Paolo Orsi” in Syracuse, Etna Park, Archaeological Park of Naxos and Taormina), aiming to “augment” a traditional virtual tour in street-level operation with other digital contents.
She is currently working as an editor for virtual storytelling experiences such as NOTO VR 1693: The Day of Fear and the continuous experience about the Buongoverno frescoes in Siena.
Elisa is an expert in digital enhancement and co-creative participatory storytelling through heritage communities: since 2013, she is the ideologue and regional coordinator for Sicily of the national project #DigitalInvasions (#InvasioniDigitali). Since 2016, she is the coordinator, on a regional scale in Sicily, for the #iziTRAVELSicilia project, creating participatory and co-creative multimedia audio guides for museums and tours on the izi.TRAVEL platform (https://www.izi.travel /) . The first main objective of this project was to bridge the digital communication gap and enhance Sicilian cultural heritage through izi.TRAVEL, a free digital storytelling platform and application, and participatory and co-creative processes with local stakeholders. With the participation of thousands of people and hundreds of institutions, representing the “heritage societies” referred to in the Faro Convention, #iziTRAVELSicilia soon turned into a participatory process and a best practice. About 400 audio guides have been created. As used in this pilot project, izi.TRAVEL could encourage both cultural and tourism institutions to digitally enhance their heritage and attractions, using this innovative tool to stimulate people’s emotional and creative participation in content co-creation applications and tourists enjoy cities, landscapes and cultural resources, improving the overall tourist experience through the narrative and experience of the area through a close contact with cultural resources and daily life.
She currently works as a consultant for the dissemination and enhancement of cultural heritage through new technologies and participatory storytelling projects and works as a communications officer at the International Puppet Museum in Palermo.
She has participated in many national and international conferences and published many papers and books: a full list of Elisa’s publications can be found here: https://usf.academia.edu/ElisaBonacini.
