CultureQuest - Digital Humanities Roadshow

This event is targeted at academics, early career researchers, PhD students and cultural heritage sector professionals.

Attendees should bring a laptop in order to participate in the workshop element. No prior technical experience is required.

At this interactive event we present CultureQuest, a collaborative pilot project led jointly by the University of Bristol and Meaning Machine, working in partnership with Bristol Museums, and funded by Digital Catapult Creative Connect. The project uses generative AI to create personalised, interactive ‘quests’ that lead museum visitors away from passive consumption of information towards active interpretation of exhibits.

The pilot focuses on the Egyptian Gallery at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, using the space as a testbed for a scalable quest system driven by Meaning Machine’s AI-powered NPCs (non-player characters). Visitors take on the role of a deceased ancient Egyptian woman entering the afterlife who must discover her past in order to pass the weighing of the heart ritual and enter the 'Field of Reeds’. Visitors use a smartphone to engage in conversations with four ancient Egyptian gods - Osiris, Anubis, Ma'at, and Ra. These characters set the visitors tasks that require them to interact closely with objects and ideas across the gallery as they progress through the Duat.

The system is built using Meaning Machine’s Game Conscious™ technology, which has previously been deployed for the purposes of gaming and immersive entertainment and is being tested in a heritage context for the first time. Meaning Machine’s NPCs are not merely chatbots with a historical skin—they are context-aware, conversationally rich characters who understand their own ‘world,’ refer to other objects in the gallery, and remember prior exchanges. By using the Game Conscious™ technology, CultureQuest offers museum visitors opportunities for agency and goal-oriented interaction that have previously been the prerogative of digital gaming, transforming them into ‘researchers’ or ‘explorers’ within the gallery space.

Guest at the event will have the opportunity to play CultureQuest and then experiment with the underlying technology to create their own unique conversational experience.