Somatic solidarity, magical realism and animating popular gods: Place-hampi "where intensities are felt"

Place-Hampi is an embodied theatre of participation in the drama of Hindu mythology focused at the most significant archaeological, historical and sacred locations of the World Heritage site Vijayanagara (Hampi), South India. The research described in this paper examines a history of several scopic regimes observable in Indian aesthetic traditions (principally those associated with chromolithography) and their socio-cultural implications - to articulate the somatic engagement inherent to encounters with the mythological deities in image form. Information derived from the examination of diverse scopic regimes has been used to guide the decisions in symbolic logic and high level cognitive programming of computer graphic characters that help co-evolve the narrative engagement between intangible heritage of place and participants. PlaceHampi investigates experiences of encounter-as tangible knowledge that has implications for immersive heritage visualizations for diverse cultural audiences.