Hasil untuk "Museums. Collectors and collecting"

Ibrahim Elassal, Andrea Chávez Triviño, Iván Darío Chávez Triviño

Reviving both the tangible and intangible aspects of lost heritage is essential to preserve awareness for future generations. The 9th-century city of Al-Qaṭāʾi in Egypt has been repeatedly destroyed during the conflicts between the Tulunids and the Abbasids. Virtual technologies and three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction serve to digitally raise awareness of the city and its historical significance, especially since it no longer exists. The challenge of digital revival in this project's framework is to imagine how life unfolded in the city during the 9th century. Our goal in this project is to leverage the advancements in 3D modelling technologies to reconstruct the lost historical Egyptian city. The methodology report begins with a description of the foundation for the 3D model reconstruction of the historically lost city, which serves as the main case study for this project. The methodology for this reconstruction is achieved through scope definition, wherein the main structures and complementary elements of the scene are identified. This is followed by the documentation phase, during which all available information on the scene is gathered through sketches, engravings, photographs, plans, and other sources. The next phase involves establishing hypotheses, where 2D and 3D sketches are produced to propose the general volumes of structures and elements. Finally, the creation of 3D models brings the structures and associated elements to life through the texturing process, as well as the inclusion of terrain, vegetation, fauna, characters, and other components, allowing the complete scene to emerge. The objective of the article is to revive the destroyed architecture of the non-existent city and communicate its value to the public through interactive virtual exploration. This study aims to demonstrate how the combination of digital methods for virtual reconstruction is valuable for both knowledge dissemination and research, through the case study of Al-Qaṭāʾi in Egypt.

Alessio Ferrato, Fabio Gasparetti, Carla Limongelli et al.

Indoor Positioning Systems (IPSs) hold significant potential for enhancing visitor experiences in cultural heritage institutions. By enabling personalized navigation, efficient artifact organization, and better interaction with exhibits, IPSs can transform the modalities of how individuals engage with museums, galleries and libraries. However, these institutions face several challenges in implementing IPSs, including environmental constraints, technical limits, and limited experimentation. In other contexts, Received Signal Strength (RSS)-based approaches using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and WiFi have emerged as preferred solutions due to their non-invasive nature and minimal infrastructure requirements. Nevertheless, the lack of publicly available RSS datasets that specifically reflect museum environments presents a substantial barrier to developing and evaluating positioning algorithms designed for the intricate spatial characteristics typical of cultural heritage sites. To address this limitation, we present BAR, a novel RSS dataset collected in front of 90 artworks across 13 museum rooms using two different platforms, i.e., Android and iOS. Additionally, we provide an advanced position classification baseline taking advantage of a proximity-based method and $k$-NN algorithms. In our analysis, we discuss the results and offer suggestions for potential research directions.

Juan Carlos Gonçalves-Dosantos, Ricardo Martínez, Joaquín Sánchez-Soriano

In this paper, we extend the museum pass problem to incorporate the market structure. To be more precise, we consider that museums are organized into several pass programs or consortia. Within this framework, we propose four allocation mechanisms based on the market structure and the principles of proportionality and egalitarianism. All these mechanisms satisfy different reasonable properties related to fairness and stability which serve to axiomatically characterize them.

Zhaokang Li, Qian Zhang, Jiayue Xu et al.

Museums, which are among the most popular science institutions outside schools, are usually used to display and introduce historical culture and cultural relics to tourists. Text and audio explanations are used by traditional museums to popularize historical knowledge and science for tourists, and general interactive systems are based on desktops. This learning method is relatively boring in terms of experience. As a result, tourists have no desire or interest in actively exploring and learning about bronze ware, so they only have a basic understanding about bronze ware. Since most tourists are familiar with games, they are more likely to be attracted by game content and will actively explore and interact with it. In addition, a certain degree of reality is created by virtual reality technology and an immersive experience through head-mounted devices is provided to users. In this paper, we take Chinese bronzes as the research objects. We first use laser scanners to obtain bronze models ; then, we build a virtual museum environment, and we finally design a virtual reality curation game based on this bronze digital museum. This game offers visitors an immersive museum roaming and bronze ware interactive experience. Through a combination of text, video learning, and games, visitors' curiosity and desire to explore bronze ware are stimulated, and their understanding and ability to remember bronze ware knowledge can be deepened. In terms of cultural heritage, this game is also conducive to the spread of traditional Chinese bronze culture throughout the world.

Miriam Molnárová

The article is focused on the public presentation of (not only) influential persons – the aristocracy, high-ranking citizens (euergetes and benefactors) in ancient Greece in the period from the end of the 5th century BC to the 2nd century AD – through structures known as exedrae. These architectural features, located on sites that are part of the cultural heritage, can still be found in situ in the entire Eastern Mediterranean region. Presented will be case examples of exedrae and their connection to social presentation as well as the issue of the primary purpose of their construction. In conclusion, two cases of these type of structures and its fate will be mentioned in connection with its removal from the original findspot in effort to present it in a museum.

Katarzyna Kaniowska

Jannis Blauth, Nathan Klein, Martin Nägele

Prize-Collecting TSP is a variant of the traveling salesperson problem where one may drop vertices from the tour at the cost of vertex-dependent penalties. The quality of a solution is then measured by adding the length of the tour and the sum of all penalties of vertices that are not visited. We present a polynomial-time approximation algorithm with an approximation guarantee slightly below $1.6$, where the guarantee is with respect to the natural linear programming relaxation of the problem. This improves upon the previous best-known approximation ratio of $1.774$. Our approach is based on a known decomposition for solutions of this linear relaxation into rooted trees. Our algorithm takes a tree from this decomposition and then performs a pruning step before doing parity correction on the remainder. Using a simple analysis, we bound the approximation guarantee of the proposed algorithm by $(1+\sqrt{5})/2 \approx 1.618$, the golden ratio. With some additional technical care we further improve it to $1.599$. Furthermore, we show that for the path version of Prize-Collecting TSP (known as Prize-Collecting Stroll) our approach yields an approximation guarantee of 1.6662, improving upon the previous best-known guarantee of 1.926.

Mia F. Yates, Anders Sundnes Løvlie

In this article, we present and discuss a user-study prototype, developed for Bakkehuset historic house museum in Copenhagen. We examine how the prototype - a digital sound installation - can expand visitors' experiences of the house and offer encounters with immaterial cultural heritage. Historic house museums often hold back on utilizing digital communication tools inside the houses, since a central purpose of this type of museum is to preserve an original environment. Digital communication tools however hold great potential for facilitating rich encounters with cultural heritage and in particular with the immaterial aspects of museum collections and their histories. In this article we present our design steps and choices, aiming at subtly and seamlessly adding a digital dimension to a historic house. Based on qualitative interviews, we evaluate how the sound installation at Bakkehuset is sensed, interpreted, and used by visitors as part of their museum experience. In turn, we shed light on the historic house museum as a distinct design context for designing hybrid visitor experiences and point to the potentials of digital communication tools in this context.

Wierzbicka, Anna Maria, Arno, Maria

Sacral objects are an important part of Europe’s religious heritage. For centuries, temples have constituted a key element in the urban morphology; they fit into the urban fabric of European cities and are permanently embedded there. Due to the current laicization of Europe, the adaptation of sacred buildings into secular functions has become a necessity for economic reasons. Their owners, architects, conservators and historians are faced with a dilemma: whether to preserve an object or transform it into another function? Places of worship cannot be considered in solely economic terms due to the identity of the place, its current function and its symbolism. Sacred spaces, apart from their function, structure and form, also have meaning. In holy sites, the symbol becomes a narrative tool. The purpose of a narrative in the cultural context is related to the site, the narrator, the recipient and the time of the narrative. Narrative research into semantic architecture, as one of the means of researching sacred architecture, has potential both in analysis and as a tool to facilitate design processes for the appropriate transformation of sacred buildings to serve secular functions.

Pengcheng Zhu, Elizabeth H. Driscoll, Bo Dong et al.

The ever-increasing number of spent lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) has presented a serious waste-management challenge. Aluminium and copper current collectors are important components in LIBs and take up a weight percentage of more than 15%. Direct reuse of current collectors can effectively reduce LIB waste and provide an alternative renewable source of aluminium and copper. Besides, it also prevents long manufacturing processes and associated energy input and material consumption. However, there is a lack of work on the direct reuse of current collectors in the literature. Herein, aluminium and copper current collectors are reclaimed from commercial spent LIBs with different chemical treatments and successfully reused for LiNi0.6Mn0.2Co0.2O2 cathodes and graphite anodes, respectively. The reclaimed current collectors treated with different processes show different surface compositions and morphology to pristine ones, resulting in distinctive wettability, adhesion and electrical conductivity. The reused current collectors show similar electrochemical performance to the pristine one at low C rates, while extra caution should be taken at high C rates for aluminium current collectors due to relatively low contact conductivity. This work provides substantial evidence that the direct reuse of aluminium and copper current collectors is possible and highlights the importance of the surface morphology of current collectors.

Steve Benford, Anders Sundnes Løvlie, Karin Ryding et al.

Museums are interested in designing emotional visitor experiences to complement traditional interpretations. HCI is interested in the relationship between Affective Computing and Affective Interaction. We describe Sensitive Pictures, an emotional visitor experience co-created with the Munch art museum. Visitors choose emotions, locate associated paintings in the museum, experience an emotional story while viewing them, and self-report their response. A subsequent interview with a portrayal of the artist employs computer vision to estimate emotional responses from facial expressions. Visitors are given a souvenir postcard visualizing their emotional data. A study of 132 members of the public (39 interviewed) illuminates key themes: designing emotional provocations; capturing emotional responses; engaging visitors with their data; a tendency for them to align their views with the system's interpretation; and integrating these elements into emotional trajectories. We consider how Affective Computing can hold up a mirror to our emotions during Affective Interaction.

Helen Glaister

Amy Levin

Review of Apsel, Joyce, and Amy Sodaro, eds. Museums and Sites of Persuasion: Politics, Memory, and Human Rights. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2020, hardback £120, paperback £34.99, ebook £31.49, pp.232. Chynoweth, Adele, Bernadette Lynch, Klaus Petersen, and Sarah Smed, eds. Museums and Social Change: Challenging the Unhelpful Museum. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2021, hardback £120, paperback £34.99, ebook £31.49, pp.214. Cole, Johnetta Betsch, and Laura L. Lott, eds. Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion in Museums. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019, hardback £61.41, paperback £25.29, ebook £21.67, pp.182.

Sarah Bond, Katie Dabin, Stewart Emmens et al.

The curators of Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries reflect on their experiences of creating these significant new displays at the Science Museum in London. After summarising the historical medical displays at this museum, they outline the curatorial concepts behind their respective new galleries to explore the display strategies and processes behind the development of the new exhibits and highlight the significance of some of the objects that visitors can encounter today.

D. Pearson

Studies of private libraries and their owners invariably talk about ‘book collecting’—is this the right terminology? After summarizing our broadly held understanding of the evolution of bibliophile collecting from the eighteenth century onwards, this chapter considers the extent to which similar behaviours can be detected (or not) in the seventeenth, drawing on the material evidence of bookbindings, wording in wills, and other sources. Do we find subject-based collecting, of the kind we are familiar with today, as a characteristic of early modern book owners? Some distinctions are recognized in ways in which medieval manuscripts (as opposed to printed books) were brought together at this time. The relationship between libraries and museums, and contemporary attitudes to them, is explored. The concluding argument is that ‘collecting’ is a careless word to use in the seventeenth-century context; just as we should talk about users rather than readers, we should use ‘owners’ rather than ‘collectors’ as the default term, unless there is evidence to the contrary.

Laura Carter

The second part of this book, of which this chapter is part, is about the ‘history of everyday life’ in practice. This chapter examines the ‘history of everyday life’ in local community settings. It argues that folk museums were the museological vehicles of popular social history in mid-twentieth-century Britain. The British folk museum movement is traced via museum case studies in Luton, Cambridge, York, and the Highlands. Collecting practices, curation, visitors, and the educational programmes within each museum are analysed. The practices of several curator-collectors of everyday life, notably Enid Porter and Isabel Grant, are explored in depth. The chapter argues that folk history, so often thought of as a talisman of the extreme right, was recast at a community level into a feminized and conservative ‘history of everyday life’ for ordinary people. The final part of the chapter connects the ‘history of everyday life’ to debates about the emergence of commercial and industrial heritage in Britain during the 1960s and 1970s.

Penesta Dika

Terrence H. Witkowski

Purpose This study aims to present a history and critical analysis of arms and armor collecting in America from the late 19th century until the present day. Design/methodology/approach The research draws from the literature on arms and armor, from primary written, visual and material evidence, and from the author’s long experience as an antique gun and sword collector. Findings American arms and armor collectors have included men of great wealth, museums and their curators and many enthusiasts of more modest means. Collectors, dealers and curators have created a substantial arms literature. Collectors have organized around various types of artifacts, historical periods and company brands. Dealers, auction houses and manufacturers have provisioned the market with period pieces and reproductions. Originality/value The history of antique arms and armor collecting is regarded as a social activity where enthusiasts have pursued “serious leisure” through consumption and brand communities. This history is further analyzed as a cultural practice wherein generations of collectors have interpreted the meaning of antique arms and armor.

Hanna Chuchvaha

In the patriarchal culture of imperial Russia, the collecting, preserving, and exhibiting of art works was an activity reserved predominantly for men; in the second half of the nineteenth century, however, a new type of female collector emerged. In both the capitals and provinces, women began collecting, exhibiting, and promoting folk arts and crafts and needlework. This article examines the focus on the part of specific female collectors and patrons on objects associated with women, their pastimes, domesticity, and femininity, all understood as an expression of both self and group identity. It examines this unfolding feminist project through five stages: (1) collecting artifacts associated with women; (2) displaying them at home or at private museums; (3) organizing and supporting the handicraft workshops and practical schools for peasant women; (4) popularizing those artifacts via printed editions; and (5) publishing ethnographic commentaries which reflected female pastimes, material culture, and crafts in the context of traditional culture and the arts and crafts revival.

M. Huang

ABSTRACT In the first half of the twentieth century, members of the public in Britain were familiar with traditional Chinese painting, but not work produced by living artists from Republican China. Public museums did not become enthusiastic about acquiring twentieth-century Chinese pictorial art until the 1960s. Substantial gifts of modern Chinese painting and calligraphy presented by private collectors to the British Museum and the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in the 1990s have contributed to the proliferation of associated exhibitions, illustrated catalogues and scholarly activities. This paper explores the visions and strategies of British museums in forming their collections of modern Chinese painting in the second half of the twentieth century. It focuses on the institutional histories, acquisition policies and the collections of Chinese pictorial art in the British Museum and the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in order to examine the impetus for initiating new collecting strategies in the last quarter of the twentieth century. It also investigates the contribution of individual curators in enhancing the British understanding of modern Chinese painting through acquisitions, exhibitions and publications from the 1960s to the 1990s, which laid a strong foundation for developing vigorous programmes of contemporary collecting and display.