The Crossing exhibit re-"presents" the complex learning spaces of Banaras through living multimedia documents and interfaces. Through the design of physical and virtual learning spaces and through live, real time multimedia net-based connection to the spaces in Banaras, as well as interpretation by knowledge practitioners, the exhibit aims to immerse people into the transformative dimensions of Banaras. In terms of layout, the Crossing exhibit consists of a collection of physical virtual spaces, each space interpreting learning themes related to the pilgrimage site.

Contemporary multimedia technology has undoubtedly increased the screen based display space and provided users with quick access to images and sound. While there is rich output coming from system to user, input between user to system is keyboard and mouse based and text based. What if, instead of text-based retrieval and button pushing, the learner could interact through expressive gestures? Couldn't interacting through gestures allow the learner to access pictures through pictures, sound through sound. Couldn't we explore 'multimedia' search engines?

There will not be any keyboard or mice visible in the Crossing exhibit. Instead, interaction with the digital content will be through a variety of smart, high-touch interfaces, such as physical icons, pop up boxes, body adornable accessories, such as rings, jewellery, wearable computing, and computing augmented books. Each of these physical interfaces has embedded computing technology. The user's actions with the physical interfaces are recognized and transmitted through IR technology to a nearby hidden computer. The computer parses the user's commands and translates them into actions, such as play a multimedia file, or browse through a hypermedia database.

Early efforts of computing focused on emulating the properties of paper media, creating digital screen design based presentation models. While designers captured the gross aspects of paper medium in digital media the subtler aspects of paper interaction were ignored - i.e., how the paper document, one that could support fluid, social learning interactions.

Therefore, can we not explore bridges between the traditional media and computing display media?

Explorations of these questions lead us to a vision of the living document experience that incorporates spatial dimensions and the body in the act of communication.

Early efforts of computing focused on emulating the properties of paper media, .e., creating digital screen design based presentation models. While designers captured the gross aspects of paper medium in digital media the subtler aspects of paper interaction were ignored - i.e., how the paper document, one that could support fluid, social learning interactions.

Therefore, can we not explore bridges between the traditional media and computing display media?

Explorations of these questions lead us to a vision of the living document experience that incorporates spatial dimensions and the body in the act of communication.

The physical interfaces described earlier serve as a means for the user to interact with the digital content, but they also serve as the memory aid to the learning spaces of the exhibit. URL paths describing the users path through the content space can be stored in the physical objects. These serves as memory aid, memento, and 3Dphysical 'book marks', which allow user to retrieve the context of the interactions with the exhibit's content from home.