Comparative Study of Digital Heritage Narratives in East Asia: The Cases of Digital Dunhuang and E-National Treasures

Abstract

In the context of accelerating digitization and global cultural heritage preservation, digital heritage has evolved beyond a preservation-oriented function to become a medium for aesthetic experience and cultural reinterpretation. This study compares China’s Digital Dunhuang initiative with Japan’s E-National Treasures project to examine how distinct East Asian aesthetic traditions are translated into digital environments. Through a comparative aesthetic lens, the paper analyzes their developmental logics, narrative structures, and underlying cultural philosophies, focusing on the Chinese concept of yijing and the Japanese notion of mono no aware as they are operationalized in digital heritage platforms. The study proposes a four-dimensional analytical framework encompassing temporality, spatiality, interactivity, and affectivity to systematically examine how these two projects construct different modes of digital cultural representation. It argues that Digital Dunhuang tends to produce an immersive, integrative experiential field aligned with yijing, emphasizing continuity of space, guided interaction, and collective affect. In contrast, E-National Treasures foregrounds object-centered visualization, emphasizing material specificity, fragmentary perception, autonomous viewing, and individualized emotional resonance, reflecting the sensibility of mono no aware. By contrasting these two paradigms, the paper reveals how digital media reconfigure cultural memory and aesthetic perception in East Asian heritage practices. It further argues that digital heritage systems are not neutral preservation tools but active mediators that encode cultural philosophies into interface design and user experience. This study contributes to digital humanities by developing a culturally grounded analytical framework for understanding how aesthetic traditions are transformed into digital media architectures.