HONG KONG (AFP) ― It started with an inflatable pig.

Jeffrey Shaw has always been fascinated by interactivity, having in the 1960s created art he hoped would narrow the gap between viewer and image.

His pig starred on the cover of Pink Floyd’s 1977 concept album “Animals,” floating eerily above London’s Battersea Power Station, in what has become one of the most famous images in rock music history.

“I was already very interested then in audience participation,” said the Melbourne native, who is currently Dean of the School of Creative Media at City University, Hong Kong.

“So instead of a bronze or stone sculpture with which you could do nothing, a lot of the artwork I was making was to do with inflatable structures, which people could jump on or throw around.”

In the same spirit, Shaw has developed what he calls “cultural heritage visualisation,” a technique that he hopes will help preserve key sites around the world before the onslaught of mass tourism destroys them.

Shaw said his most important project to date is a collaboration with the Dunhuang Academy in Gansu Province, China. Dunhuang is in an oasis amid the Gobi desert and a former gateway to and from China on the ancient Silk Road.

The UNESCO World Heritage Site Shaw is working on is made up of 492 Buddhist grotto temples ― or Mogaoku ― which contain murals, statues and architectural monuments of enormous cultural and historical value.

Shaw’s aim is to create a definitive record of how the caves look now and use it to create a reconstruction of the environment.

To ensure their preservation, it is likely the caves will be eventually sealed. Future access will therefore be virtual, relying on digital media and the visualization work that Shaw is doing.

His work was recently exhibited in Hong Kong, using a full laser scan of the escarpment at Dunhuang and high-resolution photography to build a virtual environment, on a one-to-one scale, for visitors to explore.

Technologies used to augment the experience include detailed re-colouring and restoration, a variable scale magnifying glass, virtual touch and 3-D animation.

Shaw even worked with two dancers from the Beijing Dance Academy to bring to life their ancient painted counterparts.

At the moment, only one of Dunhuang’s 735 caves has been reconstructed to this level of detail.

The project’s goal is to develop a demonstration of 10 to 20 virtual caves, enabling the Dunhuang Academy to potentially tour it to major museums around the world.