Gamification, a lab of cultural partecipation in the Museum. The case study of the Benedectine Monastery in Catania

In the context of studies on audience engagement (AE) and audience development (AD) gamification becomes a real experimentation of educational methods attributable to playful teaching in contexts "not formal". Through the practice of the game it is possible to understand the processes of communication and cultural participation which favor the construction or consolidation of meanings that people attribute to a cultural heritage: it can be a place, a historical event, an artifact. The gamification can be designed as an interesting tool for engagement and motivation to generate social or cultural change. The aim of this paper is the analysis of a gamification project, "Il Sigillo Spezzato" (The Broken Seal), played on the Benedictine Monastery of San Nicolo (Catania). The experimentation is part of a more articulated audience development plan for the SiMUA - Sistema Museale d'Ateneo, developed to provide new practices and greater opportunities for dissemination and social communication of humanistic research, with a view to the Third Mission of Universities.