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Vol.16 2021 International Journal of Intangible Heritage 123
An approach to enhancing contemporary handmade
products with historic narratives
Nikolaos Partarakis
Effie Karuzaki
Paraskevi Doulgeraki
Carlo Meghini
Cynthia Beisswenger
Hansgeorg Hauser
Xenophon Zabulis
124
Abstract
Traditional crafts involve craft artefacts, materials and
tools while encompassing craftsmanship as a form of in-
tangible cultural heritage (ICH). In modern societies, the
production of traditional crafts (TCs) has decreased due
to the lack of interest and the reduction in the number of
practitioners. In this context, we explore modern digital
technologies to enhance a contemporary TCs object with
digital stories that connect it to the history, society, tradi-
tions and values of Europe. Such stories can support new
interest in TCs objects by enhancing their meaning, value
and uniqueness. In this research work, we have created
a handbag that functions both as an accessory and as a
contemporary craft that can be experienced to reveal its
unique history and identity.
Keywords
traditional crafts, contemporary craft products, semantic
knowledge representation, augmented reality, narratives,
storytelling
An approach to enhancing
contemporary handmade
products with historic narratives
Nikolaos Partarakis, PhD
Effie Karuzaki (Mrs.)
Paraskevi Doulgeraki (Mrs.)
Foundation for Research and Technology Ellas, Crete, Greece
Carlo Meghini (Mr.)
Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie della Informazione (ISTI), Pisa,
Italy
Cynthia Beisswenger (Mrs.)
Hansgeorg Hauser (Mr.)
Förderverein Haus der Seidenkultur (HdS), Krefeld, Germany
Xenophon Zabulis, PhD
Foundation for Research and Technology Ellas, Crete, Greece
Vol.16 2021 International Journal of Intangible Heritage 125
Introduction
In consumer societies, the availability of affordable,
mass-produced goods has seriously reduced the market
for handmade products. This has placed traditional crafts
(TCs) in a vulnerable position. The factors that influence
the decline of TCs can be summarised as the reduction
of market demand for traditional handmade goods,
competition with imported mass-produced products
from third-world countries, regression of the workforce
as skilled craftspeople get older, the globalisation of
the economy and the rise in the cost of raw materials
(European Policy Brief of the RICHES project)]. At the
same time, the globalisation of the economy, branding
policies, advertisement and product presentation in media
may lead to the false perception that craft products are
associated with the past, thus making them less attractive
to young people. This problem has financial dimensions
as well: because of the lack of interest in and support
for craft-related entrepreneurship, fewer people are
exploring it.
According to the European Policy Brief of the RICHES
project, however, some isolated positive signs may give
rise to an increase in handmade products in the future.
For example, do-it-yourself culture, the emergence of
digital fabrication at home (e.g. 3D printing) and hybrid
forms of making, which merge the traditional with the
contemporary, are giving life to several small businesses.
At the same time, the rising need for individuality in
consumer societies has increased the demand for unique,
customised products. In this context, a repositioning of
craft skills, techniques, patterns and materials is possible
by augmenting them through the integration of digital
technology. In this article, we argue that this may lead to
a new form of craft-based innovation, which can also be
promoted through ethical approaches to sustainability,
ecologic use and local production.
According to Kurin (2007), ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage
(ICH) – a loose English translation of the Japanese
mukei
bunkazi
, is broadly defined in terms of oral traditions,
expressive culture, the social practices, ephemeral
aesthetic manifestations, and forms of knowledge carried
and transmitted within cultural communities’. Heritage
crafts, a form of ICH, are strongly bound to the history and
traditions of the communities in which they are practised
(Kurin 2007), but they are also linked to the history and
tradition of humanity as a whole, through common links
and craft manifestations across the globe.
In this work, we focus on the craft of textile weaving
and the presentation of the historic patterns, symbols and
motifs through storytelling. Like many craft products, in
traditional textiles, one can often recognise the origin of
textile from its decorative patterns or its visual style. The
pattern of a woven product may contain an aesthetic,
decorative or artistic dimension. Weaving a patterned
fabric is a tedious process that requires additional skill to
encode specific multicoloured patterns. The invention of
mechanical looms increased the automation of the tedious
task of patterned weaving and resulted in the ability to
manufacture highly detailed patterns more quickly and
with fewer errors.
The relation of weaving to storytelling and music is
surprisingly old. For example, Euripides’s consistent
pairing of weaving with the recitation of mythological
stories is intriguing:
As the texts suggest, women retell stories while
weaving, and this means of retelling is differentiated
from other modes of storytelling. If the processes of
relating such myths were directly associated with
patterning in the textiles as they are produced, then
the recitation would necessarily embed numerical
information about the thread counts of the woven
pattern. (Tuck 2009)
It remains a mystery today whether storytelling
provided thematology or acted as a numeric code
corresponding to groups of knots of a given colour or the
number of warp threads overshot by those of the weft.
Regardless of the kind of connection, it is still important
today to revive memories and stories carried by traditional
motifs, patterns and symbols used in TCs (Heckman and
Heckman 2003).
To support this vision, this work presents the design,
implementation and augmentation of a handmade
handbag, to act as a storyteller for the historic patterns
of Haus der Seidenkultur (HdS), in the city of Krefeld,
Germany. From a technological point of view, this research
work exploits the evolution of augmented reality (AR),
virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR), which tries to
identify and design new forms of interaction with cultural
heritage artefacts, thus providing an alternative approach
for experiencing handmade products through storytelling
and mobile devices.
126
Background and related work
Social and historical dimensions of textile
manufacturing in Krefeld: Silk and the
history of Krefeld
Pure silk, one of the oldest known natural fibres, is
still highly fashionable even after thousands of years.
This beautiful, elegant fabric fascinates humankind with
its precious radiance, gossamer touch and strength. As
long ago as antiquity, the incomparable haptic inspired
the powerful in this world to such a degree that they even
weighed the fibres in gold. Kings, emperors and the clergy
wore splendid silken garments; the wealthy did not want
to forgo silk clothes.
The history of Krefeld is closely linked to this magical
material. Today, there is a small museum, the HdS, which
shows how the history of silk has shaped the development
of the town over the past three centuries. Krefeld is a town
with a Roman past. Excavations in neighbouring Gellup
revealed the existence of at least six Roman camps up to
the fourth century AD. Burial sites dating to the time of
the Franks indicate that the area was settled continuously.
Starting in the late Middle Ages, Krefeld belonged to the
County of Moers. The Counts of Moers made every effort to
establish the Reformation early in their territory; the first
Reformist preacher in the area took up his post in 1561. At
the beginning of the 17th century, Krefeld came under the
rule of the Netherlands, and the town became an island
of religious tolerance. Consequently, in a period in which
the denomination of the population was determined by the
denomination of the ruler, Mennonites from near and far
came to Krefeld and settled there. This immigration had
far-reaching consequences that have shaped the profile
of the town to the present day.
The religious refugees brought with them linen-
processing skills, and, because they were also successful
business people, they laid the foundations for economic
growth and prosperity. The Von der Leyen family,
immigrants from Radevormwald, also contributed
significantly to the development of the ‘Town like Silk and
Velvet’. Originally linen weavers, the family increasingly
changed the emphasis of their business to silk weaving. In
1702, Krefeld came under Prussian rule, and silk weaving
became the most important economic factor: sales to the
Prussian court in Berlin flourished. During this period,
the silk weavers were out workers who received orders
from merchants and traders to weave fabrics. The looms
were set up in front of the light window in the typical small
cottages, some of which still exist today. The head of the
household was normally the weaver, and other family
members helped with tasks such as reeling the thread onto
the bobbins for the shuttle. On one of the main avenues
of the town, there is a monument to the weaver ‘Meister
Ponzelaar’. He wears his Sunday best: a frock coat (in the
local dialect, a ‘Laakesserock’), a high-necked waistcoat,
a small collar with a silk scarf and a ‘Jraduutkapp’ (a black
cap). At the end of the week, he takes the finished fabric
on the beam, together with a bag containing any leftover
thread, to the merchant’s office. There, he was paid and
received a new prepared warp beam and thread for the
week ahead. Such weavers were a typical sight in the town
until the beginning of the 19th century. Their craft required
rapid comprehension and rhythmic movement of hand
and foot.
In 1785, Edward Cartwright invented his first
mechanical loom and continued to make improvements
to it. The enhanced looms became available on the
market in 1820. With the advent of mechanisation, the
silk entrepreneurs started to build factories where all the
machines were powered by one source of energy and the
workers were responsible for more than one loom.
Historic patterns employed in this
research work
Since antiquity, craft communities have been
embedding cultural elements in weft products, for
decorative or emblematic purposes. Like many craft
products, patterned fabrics have a dual purpose. They are
usable items, and they include heritage that represents a
region and its people. In terms of traditional textiles, one
can often recognise the origin of a piece of textile from its
decorative patterns or visual style. Thus, patterns, motifs
and shapes of a craft object can relate to historical ones
that are still reproduced today or new ones that appear in
the craftsmanship of younger, contemporary generations.
Furthermore, some creations are determined by craft
locality: these are unique to the craft community, and they
might depend on the social, religious or environmental
characteristics of the specific area.
The revival of patterns, symbols and
motifs by the modern textile industry
According to Anderson (2012), the emergence of the
contemporary maker movement has been empowered
Vol.16 2021 International Journal of Intangible Heritage 127
Table 1
sample textile patterns and their accompanying stories from HdS
Until the beginning of the 19th century, textiles were seldom produced exclusively for the church.
Robes were tailored from secular textiles, but patterns were chosen that also had significance in
the symbolic language of the Christian church. For example, the ear of corn is a gift of nature and a
present from God; it gives us our daily bread. The ear of corn reminds us of the transubstantiation
(transformation) of bread into the body of Christ during Mass in Catholic theology.
Produced in the Byzantine Empire – probably for the emperor’s court – it is thought that the
original cloth arrived in the Occident as an imperial gift, because the elephant, as one of the
strongest animals on earth, symbolises the ruler. When the German Emperor Otto III had
Charlemagne’s tomb in Aix-la-Chapelle opened in the year 1000, he wrapped the mortal remains of
his predecessor in the magnificent cloth. This is how the precious silk cloth has endured for
centuries.
When the shrine was opened again several times in the 19th and 20th centuries, the impressive
pattern was recorded at first in a drawing, and later photographed.
Because it was not until the 19th century that textiles were woven specifically for liturgical use, silk
cloth intended for secular use was used to make ecclesiastical vestments. Preference was given to
patterns whose symbolism also had a sacral significance. For example, the lion, king of the
animals, became the symbol of the power and glory of God.
This pattern belongs to a group of textiles inspired by Chinese motifs produced in the 14th century
in various centres for silk weaving in Italy, such as Lucca, Venic eand Florence. Despite the obvious
heathen symbols, these patterns found their way into the symbolism of the Church. The crescent
moon was ignored, and the bird was interpreted as an eagle, which, as the most powerful bird in
the sky, was equated with Christ. The sun was interpreted as a representation of the light of the
enlightenment.
The pair of swans represented constant faithfulness. Therefore it was possible to make
ecclesiastical vestments and altar hangings bearing this pattern.
The circle is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, symbol used by humankind. As early as the
Neolithic period, ceremonial gathering places were arranged in a circular shape (e.g. Stonehenge
in southern England). Round cup marks are made in rocks. The solar disc and the full moon are the
most striking circular objects in nature, and people worshipped them like gods. In the third and
fourth centuries AD, the cloth woven by the Copts in Egypt was decorated with a circular pattern.
Silk cloth was also woven with this pattern in Persia.
Arabian influences largely characterise the Arabesque pattern. Motifs from the plant world are
artistically interwoven with stylised fantastic animals and in some cases intertwined to form an
ornate design. The company Hubert Gotzes replaced the wave-like, parallel curved lines containing
Kufic characters between the individual pattern elements with floral garlands.
The stag is a well-known ancient symbol in the Christian church; it depicts the God-loving soul or
the souls of those who wish for calm and peace, as documented in the Bible in Psalms 42:1: ‘As the
stag pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God’. The stag already played an
important role in 13th- and 14th-century ecclesiastical robes. The Eastern influence on pattern
design at the time can be seen in the fine imaginative design of the animal motifs and the type of
ornaments chosen.
This pattern may refer to the legend of Torpes of Pisa, who was an official in the service of Emperor
Nero. During a ceremony in honour of the goddess Diana, Torpes declared that he believed in the
one Christian god. Thereupon, EmperorNero, had Torpes tortured and beheaded. The corpse of the
martyr and saint was placed in a rotten boat together with a dog and a cockerel, and the boat
drifted down the river Arno to the Tyrrhenian Sea. According to Provençal tradition, Torpes’s corpse
washed up on the French coast near the place that later becomes St. Tropez, taking its name from
St. Torpes. Today, the gondola pattern serves as the logo forthe German Textile Museum in Krefeld
(Deutsches Textilmuseum Krefeld).
128
by digital technology, and especially the internet, which
has allowed the connection of communities of makers,
buyers and sellers, transforming the maker movement
into a global phenomenon. The impacts on the craft
economy are directly connected with the recalibration of
the retail industry by granting makers direct access to
the globalised market, reviving interest in craft skills and
craft products, and contributing to the democratisation of
design, with patterns and techniques inspired by culture
and cultural heritage. In Figure 1, some examples of
contemporary designers reaching the market through the
revival of traditional techniques, patterns, symbols and
motifs are presented.
Digital storytelling technologies
Digital technology has empowered the maker
movement to create original, contemporary, handmade
products inspired by art, culture and tradition and to revive
patterns, symbols and motifs. In this changing world, in
this work, we aspire to revive and present the cultural
significance of patterns, symbols and motifs as bearers of
tradition, collective memories and stories.
Our approach is rooted in the idea that humans
exhibit a limited capacity to memorise inventories, such
as a list of events as opposed to stories imbued with
meaning or causal dependencies (Straub 2008). In this
work, an approach is proposed that binds contemporary
craft products with the cultural context of their depicted
patterns, symbols and motifs through stories that explain
their elements. As such, among the available technologies,
augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality
(MR) can empower experiences in multiple contexts of use
and can be gracefully used to augment physical items or
their digital representation with information.
Traditional blouse, long-sleeved, cloth loop
with floral traditional embroidery. The blouse
is handmade in a Transylvanian workshop.
https://www.blouseroumaine-shop.com/en/
blouse-roumaine-traditional-handmade-
embroidery-ioana
Woven Kaftan dress.
https://www.celiadragouni.com/shop/
womenswear/kaftan/woven-kaftan-
dress/?v=f214a7d42e0d
Alexandra Theohari gives motifs found at
Minoan frescoes, among others, a
contemporary spin.
https://www.greece-is.com/madeingreece/
matters-of-style/
Figure 1
Contemporary designers employ traditional motifs, patterns and symbols in textile manufacturing.
Vol.16 2021 International Journal of Intangible Heritage 129
AR for overlaying information on the real
world
According to Chatzopoulos, Bermejo, Huang and
Hui (2017), the evolution of the capabilities and features
of mobile devices such as smartphones, combined
with ubiquitous and affordable internet access and the
advances in the areas of networking, computer vision
and cloud computing, has transformed AR from science
to reality. In 2016, the mobile game
Pokémon Go
, which
essentially made AR technology popular throughout the
world, became a great example of how mobile gaming can
happen in an augmented world (Rauschnabel, Felix and
Hinsch, 2019). Today, AR is a global trend with a market
estimated to grow from USD 10.7 billion in 2019 to USD
72.7 billion by 2024, and its applications include games,
training, assistance providing, design and modelling,
education, tourism, marketing and many more.
However, one of the earlier manifestations of AR
regards its exploitation in the context of cultural heritage
objects and sites, aiming to improve the visitors’ experience
in these spaces. For example, mobile museum guides
use AR technology to enrich exhibits with information
(Wojciechowski et al. 2004; Schavemaker et al. 2011;
Schmalstieg and Wagner 2005; Sidyawati et al. 2013).
This approach has also been applied at archaeological
sites, giving rise to new forms of digitally augmented tours
(Stricker et al. 2001; Vlahakis et al. 2001; Kourouthanassis
et al. 2015). Virtual restoration of religious heritage objects
through 3D AR technology content has also been explored
(Gîrbacia et al. 2013; Narciso et al. 2015). In the same
vein, mobile AR has been used to enhance archaeological
sites with more than static information. For example,
virtual and real scenes at the site of ancient Pompeii
have been mixed, so virtual avatars can present moments
from everyday life in Pompeii (Papagiannakis et al. 2002;
Papagiannakis et al. 2005; Papagiannakis et al. 2006). One
of the major opportunities for the penetration of mobile
AR technologies in the museum context is the low cost
of such solutions because no equipment is required from
the museum side (Angelopoulou 2011). According to the
same research, museums have started to realise that AR
can be an effective way to build user interest in museum
collections and exhibits. AR is considered to be a way to
preserve history, enhance visitor satisfaction, generate
positive word-of-mouth, attract new target markets and
contribute to a positive learning experience. AR also has
an economic, experiential, social, epistemic, cultural,
historical and educational value from stakeholders’
perspectives (Tom Dieck and Jung 2017).
Virtual reality
VR is ‘a very powerful and compelling computer
application by which humans can interface and interact
with computer-generated environments in a way that
mimics real life and engages all the senses’ (Burdea
and Coiffet 2003). As such, VR has gained the attention of
the cultural heritage sector for reviving the past (Burdea
and Coiffet 2003) and thus opening a window in time and
space, so users can travel and experience the past with
all of their senses. VR achieved this through combining
computer graphics, interaction and novel approaches
towards the digitisation of cultural heritage components,
such as artefacts and monuments of material heritage.
3D models and 3D reconstructions are useful to
preserve information about historical artefacts. However,
the potential of this digital content is not fully realised,
because it is not used to communicate information to
museum visitors (Gonizzi Barsanti et al. 2015). A recent
example is the exploitation of 3D reconstruction in the
context of 3D games that facilitate exploration and learning
(Partarakis et al. 2020). In this context, VR can be exploited
to bridge the gap between the virtual representation of
an artefact and the visitor, allowing multiple forms of
interaction and storytelling with cultural heritage in the
virtual or physical museum setting (Bruno et al. 2010;
Carrozzino and Bergamasco 2010).
Mixed reality
MR refers to the merging of real and virtual worlds
to produce new environments and visualisations where
physical and digital objects coexist and interact in real
time. According to Bekele et al. (2018), several studies
demonstrate that the use of new and combined media
enhances how culture is experienced. In this regard,
cultural heritage uses such technologies for different
purposes, including education, exhibition enhancement,
exploration, reconstruction and virtual museums. Among
the multiple manifestations of MR for cultural heritage,
most relevant to this work is the use of augmented
artefacts to access and interact with information and
artefacts. Previous approaches include multimodal
interfaces to augment physical cultural heritage artefacts
with information (Partarakis et al. 2016; Partarakis,
Antona and Stephanidis 2016), art-inspired games that
130
employ physical items (Partarakis et al. 2015; Vayanou
et al. 2019), informative art displays (Partarakis et al.
2011; Redström, Skog and Hallnäs 2000; Holmquist and
Skog 2003; Ferscha 2007) and immersive mixed reality
environments for cultural heritage (Zidianakis 2021).
Contribution
This work is about combining history and traditions
with contemporary consumer goods. As such, interest in
the commercial part of AR is vivid in this research work,
with the potential to exploit its outcomes in MR settings.
Overall, AR can be beneficial for companies and brands
contributing to the creation of customer satisfaction, as
other forms of experiential marketing have done (Bulearca
and Tamarjan 2010). However, its use remains rather
limited in the realm of heritage education (Anderson,
2012). In this vein, this work experiments with the use of AR
technology to enhance the capacity of the contemporary
cultural heritage sector to deliver stories and, through
stories, enhance their meaning – transforming them from
aesthetic objects to objects that are bearers of stories and
memories. With this approach, we expect that new forms
of bonding with cultural heritage artefacts will be made
possible, thus empowering the capacity of companies
exploiting traditional crafts to innovate and reach new
target audiences.
Case study: A physical handbag design and
handcrafting Research context
TCs involve craft artefacts embedding patterns,
symbols and motifs that can be used to create engaging
cultural products and storytelling experiences.
The idea of a contemporary accessory
The idea of creating a contemporary accessory was
born during the discussions and co-creation workshops
with the craft community of HdS that took place at the HdS
in Krefeld, Germany. During these sessions, it became
apparent that both the textile manufacturing and the
history and tradition of Krefeld were important aspects
of its cultural heritage. In this context, during knowledge
collection, the historical patterns were documented and
translated into text-based narratives representing the
socio-historical context of the patterns used by HdS. At
the same time, the understanding of craft revealed the
hidden artistic dimensions of the craft and made available
a detailed representation of the crafting process.
Transmitting stories to new generations
One of the most important goals of HdS is to raise
awareness of the unique cultural heritage possessed by the
museum and to connect its legacy with European history
and tradition. Through representation and presentation
of the craft, HdS wishes to ensure the transmission of
memories, values and identity to the next generation. But
how can stories be transmitted effectively? Much research
on storytelling has been done and many approaches have
been tested. In the search for something new – that is
both a tangible artefact and at the same time a carrier of
the history and intangible dimensions of the community,
tradition and place – the idea of a handbag, the most
popular women’s accessory, emerged.
Designing the handbag
The design of the handbag was a challenging task. By
closely studying the HdS patterns, the following issues
were encountered, which required a careful design
approach: (a) the patterns are almost monochromatic, (b)
patterns are woven in bright yet intense colour variations
that require careful combinations, (c) due to the intense
iconographic elements of the patterns, the risk of creating
a cluttered visual result is high.
Taking into account the above issues, a careful study
of visual aesthetics was needed to decide upon the design
approach. Initially, it was decided on the shape of the
bag. Taking into account that the handbag should contain
several patterns, the size of the bag was decided to be
approximately 35 by 40 centimetres. The size was selected
following the size of the weaved patterns. Then, based
on the size, several sketches of the bag were made to
further discuss the concept and help determine the spatial
arrangement of patterns. Some preliminary sketches
from various angles are presented in Figure 2. As shown
in these sketches, it was decided to make the bag minimal
in terms of design and ensure that enough negative space
was left on both sides to host patterns. Furthermore, this
minimal approach would minimise the possibility of visual
clutter between the artefact and the artistic qualities of the
textile fabrics. The objective was to make the bag ‘invisible’
in terms of aesthetics to transmit the aesthetic qualities of
the subject matter depicted by the patterns. Additionally, it
was decided that the bag should have a big, solid base, to
Vol.16 2021 International Journal of Intangible Heritage 131
ensure that it would stand when placed on a surface, and
a long strap, so the bag could be worn on a shoulder but
still be visible.
Then, based on the preliminary sketches of the bag, it
was decided that the patterns should be constrained to a
strict geometric approach, so rectangular pieces of fabric
would be selected to maintain a common visual feature
among the patterns. Furthermore, it was decided that
some form of neutral separator between the patterns was
required to provide some form of visual arrangement. A
black stripe, for example, could provide a good separator
between colourful patterns. Third, it was decided that
negative space (visually empty space) would further
differentiate areas of interest from ones not visually
interesting.
Based on the above decisions, it was decided that a
concept rooted in geometric abstraction, as manifested
in 20th-century art history, could provide a structural
abstraction and thus a base for the aesthetic design of the
object. This resulted in the selection of Piet Mondrian’s
abstract style. In his paintings, primary colours are
orchestrated in strong geometrical abstraction, providing
time and space for the eye to experience the patterns and
colours.
Building a story around the bag
The outcomes of the aforementioned activities provided
the idea of the artefact, the kind of visual information to be
embedded in the artefact and the geometric and artistic
principles to be followed. What was missing was a marketing
story to make the handbag appealing to the market.
To do so, first, the market was identified as one of
the contemporary handcrafted products that have both
an artistic and historical dimension. People that select
Figure 2
Sketches of the bag: front view, side view and diagonal view
132
such products are not searching just for aesthetics but
also stories. In this context, the story of this bag can be
marketed under the following catchphrase: ‘A handbag to
carry and to experience’.
Building a digital concept around the bag
The main questions during the brainstorm sessions
to establish a digital concept around the bag were the
following:
how do you experience a handbag? How can a handbag
transmit stories?
During the discussions, input from the technical
personnel provided an overview of the knowledge-
representation capabilities of Mingei and the narrative-
authoring environment to help further elaborate on the
concept.
The outcome of this process is summarised as follows:
the handbag is a practical accessory to carry things. But
when the bag is not being carried, can it be experienced?
The answer is that, in principle, yes, but through which
technology? What is the most common digital accessory
placed in a handbag? And the answer was apparent: the
smartphone!
Following this rationale, the digital concept was
conceptualised. We started from the principle that the
handbag contains stories waiting to be discovered with
your mobile phone. The mobile phone gives life to the
handbag via an AR application. The idea was to create
a piece of craftsmanship that is not only aesthetically
pleasing but also a storyteller.
Crafting the handbag
Crafting the handbag was, in itself, an interesting
process considering the identified requirements and
concepts. One of the major challenges was the selection
of the appropriate material for the handbag. On the
outside, a neutral material that can be easily painted by
hand and that can provide a mental connection to art
artefacts was preferred. To this end, it was decided that
unpainted cotton canvas would be used. Cotton canvas
is a strong fabric used in painting and can be painted in
various media. At the same time, it is a material that can
Figure 3
Example of pattern placement
Vol.16 2021 International Journal of Intangible Heritage 133
support the overlaying of delicate textile fabrics, such as
the ones provided by HdS.
The interior of the handbag should provide stiff support
to the exterior to be a bag that can stand on its own when
placed on a surface and provide a smooth surface on
the exterior to eliminate possible deformations of the
patterns. It is important that the patterns remain visible
and with limited deformation to support the recognition
algorithms. Another requirement for the interior was that
it be waterproof. This is a practical provision to support the
actual usage of the artefact as a handbag. For the interior,
a stiff, waterproof, synthetic material was used. The same
combination of canvas and synthetic material was used for
the handbag straps to give a consistent appearance and
feel as the rest of the handbag.
After the selection of material, the actual craft creation
was initiated. Initially, the pieces of the handbag were
designed in semi-transparent paper and then transferred
to the fabric layers. Then, the abstraction of the selected
Mondrian composition was sketched on both sides of
the exterior fabric in water-soluble pencil. The black
stripes were then painted by hand, on top of the sketch,
with a black textile marker to create the outline of the
composition.
In this phase, the creation process was paused to
proceed with the selection of patterns in conjunction with
the abstract design of the handbag. Although the design
does not exhibit the vividness of the pure primary colours
used by Mondrian, the selection was made to create
maximum visual contrast and thus remain in the spirit of
the original creation. An example of pattern placement
evaluation is presented in Figure 3. The rationale of the
selection of pattern placement is twofold. First, we were
interested in visual stimuli; thus, placement should
produce stimulus input to the eye of the viewer, and this
is done through contrast variations. In the case of patterns
with limited contrast to each other, negative space was
integrated to support the visual differentiation of patterns.
Second, we were interested in the visual contrast of the
greyscale representation of patterns. Such visual contrast
is needed to assist the image-processing algorithms in
differentiating patterns that are not separated through
negative space and thus could coexist in the visual field
of an application. Finally, to ensure the patterns were
not curled on the sides of the bag, spacers had been
integrated on the sides of the composition to ensure that
visible patterns remained on the main planes of the bag.
After the selection of patterns, their cropping was
decided based on their placement to ensure that the
Figure 4
The final design of the bag side one (left) and side two (right)
134
patterns would remain visible after cropping. Then, the
patterns were sewed on both sides of the bag and the bag
straps, and the bag was assembled to produce the final
artefact as shown in Figure 4.
Digital augmentation of the physical
handbag
Mobile AR
In parallel to the design and crafting of the bag,
technical experts prepared the transfer of the bag to the
digital world. To build the AR application, ARCore was used,
which is a Google software development kit that supports
AR applications for both Android and iOS using Unity3D,
which is a powerful cross-platform game engine. After
the installation and the proper set-up of the ARCore kit in
Unity, a database of reference images for the patterns had
to be provided, so they could be recognised by the ARCore
in the real space via the camera embedded in the mobile
device (ARCore augmented-image database).
According to ARCore specifications, every image in this
database should meet the following guidelines:
1. Images should avoid repeating motifs and large
numbers of geometric features – or very few
features.
2. The images should have a relatively high contrast
when turning into greyscale because no colour
information is used by the identification algorithms
of ARCore.
3. The images should be flat (for example, not wrinkled
or wrapped around a bottle).
4. All images should feature a resolution of at least 300
x 300 pixels. Using images with high resolution does
not
improve performance.
Selection of patterns
To meet the first guideline, fabric pieces for the
creation of the bag were carefully selected so as not to
repeat motifs. Furthermore, extra care was dedicated to
avoiding fabric parts that contain many geometric features.
For example, Figure 5 shows two fabrics provided by the
HdS. The left motif contains a large number of geometric
features, which would hinder the ability of ARCore to
recognise it in the real space. Fabric pieces that would
hinder the ability of ARCore to recognise it in the real
space were not selected for the creation of the bag.
Image contrast evaluation
After the pre-selection of patterns presented in the
previous section, photos of the remaining fabric pieces,
from various angles, distances and lighting conditions,
were acquired and turned into greyscale to check their
visual contrast. Fabric pieces that had a low contrast value
in all variations were rejected.
The AR app implementation
The implementation of the AR app started with the
collection of photos of patterns as they were placed on the
bag. Each image was then tested with the arcoreimg tool2
to get a quality score between zero and one hundred. The
closer the score to one hundred, the higher the possibility
that the ARCore will successfully recognise the image in
the real space. The images were taken using the camera
of a Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e and again from various
angles and distances.
Initially, however, the application was not able to
recognise most of the motifs. This was because ARCore
Figure 5
Two historical motifs. The left one was rejected because it contains too many
geometrical features and repeating patterns.
Vol.16 2021 International Journal of Intangible Heritage 135
uses a fixed focus, so the camera image in the ARCore
application was blurry unless the phone was held at a
specific distance from the bag. This problem was partially
solved by adding a <ARCoreSession> module to the
camera that enables setting the camera focus mode to
‘auto’. Using autofocus, the camera could focus on the
target motifs on the bag better, and the application was
able to identify the patterns a little better than before –
but it still was not good enough. After a lot of trials, it was
clear the reason for the low recognition rates was the
quality of the images provided to the database. Indeed,
guideline four explicitly states that ‘using images with
high resolution does not improve performance’. Using
images with high resolution hindered the performance of
the ARCore recognition algorithms. To solve this problem,
software was used to lower the images’ quality, although
ensuring that the shortest side of the image would be
300 pixels. For example, one image was transformed
from 3024 x 4032 pixels to 300 x 400 pixels. In this way,
the ARCore performed significantly better in successfully
recognising images; however, the application needed
more than a second to do so. When an image is initially
detected by ARCore, and no expected physical size has
been specified, the ARCore will try to specify its size
automatically. However, when providing the library with
the actual physical dimensions of the target images, the
recognition of the image is much faster. In this vein, the
physical width of the motifs was measured, and these
values were fed to ARCore. Indeed, this action boosted
the ARCore performance, and the application successfully
recognised the patterns relatively quickly.
Knowledge representation and knowledge
access
Part of the charm of the handbag is its ability to tell stories
regarding patterns motifs and symbols. To achieve this, a
systematic representation of social and historic knowledge
was employed in the bag. This representation of knowledge
and its transformation into narratives is achieved through the
systematic application of the Mingei online protocol (Zabulis et al.
2019) to represent the craft of textile weaving in Krefeld. To this
end, the Mingei online platform (MOP) was used to semantically
represent cultural and socio-historical context encompassing a
Figure 6
Documentation examples
136
given focal topic of interest, such as a heritage object, collection,
site or practice. The achieved socio-historical representation
through the usage of the MOP was employed in the practice
in the contextualised presentation of the given topic, through
narratives that support its explanation to diverse audiences.
More specifically, the platform facilitates the formation of
knowledge elements for persons, events, objects, enterprises
and communities. Each element category is accompanied by a
data collection form that allows users to add, modify and delete
the respective elements. This makes possible the formulation of
a space-time continuum for the social and historical context of a
given craft (Zabulis et al. 2020). Figure 6 presents some examples
of represented knowledge of textile weaving in Krefeld.
Sequences of events and their presentation provide the
means for the definition of (a) fabulae that are considered the
sequence of historic events contributing to a story, (b) narratives
that are stories based on a fabula, (c) narrations that are different
forms of telling the same story and (d) presentations that define
how the story will be told according to the target audience and
technology used. Historical narratives can be exported and
presented in a textual form by the AR app or previewed as
multimodal documents through MOP. An example of the latter
case is presented in Figure 7 and regards the story of textile
weaving in Krefeld.
Formulation of links between textiles and
presentations
Each motif used for the formulation of the handbag has to
be connected with a presentation of the story. The presentation
is authored on the online platform and contains presentation
segments. Each presentation segment is linked to media
Figure 7
The story of textile weaving through the Mingei online platform (demo available
at https://youtu.be/zENuV_1KCxk).
Table 2
Linkage of a presentation segment to media objects
Vol.16 2021 International Journal of Intangible Heritage 137
objects presented by the mobile app. Examples of media objects
include images, 3D reconstructions and videos. The following
table (Table 2) presents an example of a pattern connected
to a 3D reconstruction of a garment and thus is linked with a
presentation segment.
User experience
Each motif has its history – a series of symbols that
evolved in time and were artistically woven together to
form traditional ecclesiastical fabrics. A few years ago,
some of these motifs were still being manually woven
on wooden Jacquard handlooms, which were up to two
hundred years old. Our AR application provides three
layers of pattern recognition. The first layer regards the
bag, which has its own story and creation. The second
layer regards multiple patterns, which reveal the story of
textile weaving in Krefeld. The third layer encompasses
the stories of the patterns (see Figure 8).
The AR app augments the virtual space with a canvas to
present those stories. Furthermore, as these stories relate to
the history of Europe and the social and historic dimension of
textile weaving, the bag is also a portal to a web of information
provided through the MOP. To reach this information, a button
with the words ‘view more info’ navigates the user to the
respective webpage of the MOP – where the journey in European
history begins.
Technical validation
To validate the combination of a bag and AR app, an
experiment was conducted on the premises of FORTH- ICS AmI
research facility. In this experiment, three set-ups were selected:
(a) one with standard lighting from the ceiling-mounted lights,
(b) one with ambient lighting from augmented wall projections
and (c) one with a combination of standard and environmental
lighting. During the evaluation, the recognition rate of the AR app
was tested in these three environments and at various distances
from the artefact. Several iterations were made to adjust the
image database to various illumination scenarios and thus to
enhance the recognition accuracy and reduce the recognition
time. A demonstration can be accessed through the video
presented in Figure 9.
Figure 8
The AR app presents information about the recognised pattern.
138
Conclusions and future work
In this paper, we presented an approach for the augmentation
of a handcrafted contemporary handbag that integrates
historical patterns used by HdS in Krefeld, Germany. The design
of the bag was challenging in terms of aesthetics and pattern
integration; its design was supported by theory on geometric
abstraction and visual aesthetics. At the same time, the AR app
was an interesting development in terms of pattern recognition,
multilayered information provision and the extension of the
experience to wider sources of information. The outcomes were
technically tested in an experiment held in various internal
spaces with lighting variation to validate recognition accuracy
and speed.
Overall, the authors argue that this process has proven their
hypothesis that digital technology can be gracefully combined
with traditional handmade artefacts to provide the possibility
for a new form of entrepreneurship concerning the history and
tradition of TCs and, at the same time, acknowledgement of
the role of digital technologies in modern societies. Currently,
the final artefact is intended to act as a physical exhibit at the
museum, where it will be experienced by visitors as a storyteller.
Furthermore, elaboration of the AR app will be done through
the user-based evaluation, which will accompany the pilot
instantiation of Mingei technology in the museum.
Acknowledgements
This work has been conducted in the context of
the Mingei project, which has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research, and an
innovation programme under grant agreement no. 822336.
The handbag was created voluntary by Constantina
Doulgeraki, who is a computer scientist that enjoys sewing
as a hobby.
Figure 9
Demonstration of the AR app (https://youtu.be/bIXLhPm0FIg).
Vol.16 2021 International Journal of Intangible Heritage 139
ENDNOTES
1 https://developers.google.com/ar/develop/c/augmented-images
2 https://developers.google.com/ar/develop/c/augmented-images/arcoreimg
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