A recent paper presented at the 36th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media (HT Adjunct 2025) explores a new direction for locative storytelling — one that resonates strongly with LoGaCulture’s interest in location-aware cultural experiences.
In Through the Looking Glasses: From Locative Hypertext to Responsive Digital Storytelling, LoGaCulture researchers David Millard and Louisa Taylor, based at the University of Southampton, propose a storytelling system that breaks free from fixed geographic locations. Rather than tying narratives to specific places, their approach dynamically adapts story content to the reader’s surrounding environment, wherever they happen to be.
Traditional locative narratives are powerful but exclusive: they only work in particular places. This research asks a simple but provocative question: what if a locative story could be experienced anywhere? The answer is a responsive storytelling system that combines pre-written narrative structures with real-time environmental data such as terrain, weather, time of day, and the reader’s movement through space.
The result is a form of digital storytelling that is location-considerate rather than location-dependent. Stories respond to context without being locked to a map, giving participants greater freedom to explore while still fostering deep connections with their surroundings.
User evaluations showed that this responsive mode increased engagement, emotional resonance, and agency. Participants described the experience as something they lived rather than simply read, reporting heightened awareness of their environment, greater imaginative involvement, and a stronger sense of personal meaning. Importantly, moments where story and place did not perfectly align were not disruptive; instead, they invited interpretation, curiosity, and playful exploration.
For projects like LoGaCulture, this work opens up exciting possibilities. Responsive locative storytelling offers a way to engage people with culture, heritage, and place beyond fixed sites, thus supporting exploration, reflection, and connection across diverse contexts. It ultimately reframes technology not as a distraction from place, but as a bridge that encourages people to notice, interpret, and care about the spaces they inhabit.