Electronic Visualisation and the Arts London 2010 BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT

This paper comments on the research project 'A New Media Approach: Visualisation of a Digital Exhibition,' whose final aim is to design a digital interface for a collection of works within the cultural heritage domain of the Xalapa Museum of Anthropology (MAX) in eastern Mexico. This museum hosts a fine collection of about 29,000 Pre-Hispanic pieces of the Olmeca, Central Veracruz and Huaxteca cultures, organises special and theme-based exhibitions, promotes research and publication and acts as a local culture centre. This paper discusses the conceptual framework for the digital interface that will display the most important pieces from the collection at the MAX and reflects on the importance of the strands that feed into the design: interface design, interaction design, information design, information architecture and navigation. The project will explore alternative design solutions of digital interfaces through a triple-interpretation concept, which are: research tool, device of information and learning, and educational resource. Integration of social media tools in the digital interface will also be explored. The project additionally aims to contribute to the analysis of the interaction that takes place when people interact with digital representations and cultural heritage data.

This work aims to deal with the problem of identifying, analysing, and classifying cracks in figurative works. The recent, considerable progress made in techniques for processing visual information has broadened the number of scientific applications in which the display and graphic processing of data play a fundamental role. Cracks consist of many elements; distinguishing and studying them has made it possible to develop a classification that in some cases can also be used as tool to verify a work's authenticity. RESTART, the system presented here, is deemed suitable for use in numerous and varied settings, such as teaching, conservation, study and research. It is able to investigate, study, research and 'restore' the digital, in accordance with the criteria dictated by knowledge. Also of considerable interest is the investigation of a crack based on such characteristics as origin and pathology, and the possibility of analysing the cracks in a fresco. The use of RESTART for such case examples is investigated and proposed.

When the European Institute for Comparative Cultural Research called museums to create 'third spaces in which different groups can share a similar experience of discovery' (2008, p. 124), it was making the assumption that these spaces can be neutral, democratic, accessible, and thus universal. Such assumptions have been applied to the virtual as a third and seemingly neutral space that museums were found lacking. However, the fascination and preoccupation with the virtual, as the panacea to issues of democracy and accessibility, needs to be reconsidered and challenged. This article questions the neutrality of and degree of accessibility to the virtual space within the framework of Bourdieu’s theories and by examining the processes of construction and use of virtual art museums.

This paper discusses the use of visualisation to enhance audience and performer understanding of a distributed networked musical performance by addressing issues of anticipation of upcoming sonic events.

The prevalence of multimedia technology has influenced modern society in many ways. Technological and economic feasibility have enabled the application of multimedia to physical spaces, where media such as audio, visual and interactive content take on spatial significance.(McCollough 2005, pp. 154-165) This has spurred multidisciplinary ventures in architecture that explore the architectonic potential of multimedia. Particularly relevant, are the progressive spatial applications of multimedia evident in multimedia installation artworks and interactive spaces. Through a case study analysis of 25 works of multimedia installation art and interactive spaces, this paper seeks to understand the manner that multimedia influences an architectural space and determine the significance of such influences in an architectural context.

The philosopher of art Roger Scruton has claimed that photographic images are not representations, on the basis of the role of causal rather than intentional processes in arriving at the content of a photographic image (Scruton, 1981). His claim was controversial at the time, and still is, but had the merit of being a springboard for asking important questions about what kinds of representation result from the technologies used in depicting and visualising. In the context of computational picturing of different kinds, in imaging and other forms of visualisation, the question arises again, but this time in an even more interesting form, since these techniques are often hybrids of different principles and techniques. A digital image results from a complex interrelationship of physical, mathematical and technological principles, embedded within human and social situations. This paper consists of three sections, each presenting a view of the question whether digital imaging and digital visual artefacts generally are representations, from a different perspective. These perspectives are not representative, but aim only to accomplish what Scruton’s paper did succeed in accomplishing, that is, being a provocation and a springboard for a broader discussion.