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Fad Touch: Creative Economy Engagement
Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the outcomes of the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Arts and Humanities Research Council funded (AHRC) Creative Economy Engagement Fellowships, a practice-driven research, development programme and knowledge transfer activity. The guiding principles and methods behind these Fellowships were to make use of low cost, replicable 3D scanning of the Museum's collection, whilst working with an educational technology startup and a 3D printing artisan workshop to determine how their technologies could be exploited whilst focusing on user-centred design. This chapter demonstrates how Early Career Researchers (ECRs) can gain valuable career progression and creative industries experience whilst combining digital technologies, audience engagement and research and implement them in a short time frame.KeywordsCreative industries3D printingMuseologyEgyptologyArchaeology
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This article describes a path to addressing the discomfort that I and many of my braver colleagues have had, when putting words into the mouths and heads of prehistoric actors, knowing that these words say more about us than they do about prehistory. Yet without such speech, how are we archaeologists and the broader public to imagine the intangibles of the deep past (emotions, affect, gender, senses)? Moreover, such words create a misleading certainty that conceals the ambiguities of the archaeological data. Are there alternative options to verbal and vocal clarity when creating imagined fictive narratives about the past? With inspiration from composer Györgi Ligeti, from linguists and experimental psychologists, and from ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) performers, I explore the emotive power of vocal non-verbal interjections and utterances that have more universality and less cultural baggage, using them in three diverse re-mediations of digital media from three prehistoric archaeological contexts in Europe and Anatolia.
Empirical studies increasingly testify to the capacity for archaeological and cultural heritage sites to engender wonder, transformation, attachment, and community bonding among diverse individuals. Following political theorist Jane Bennett, these sites have the power to ‘enchant’ and, in so doing, they are seedbeds of human generosity, ethical mindfulness, and care for the world at large. However, the means by which such enchantment is created, and the extent to which these intimate encounters with the prehistoric or historic record can be deliberately crafted, are little understood. Worsening the predicament, professional practices commonly thwart the potential for archaeology to provoke ethical action amongst humans. Here, I propose a multi-stranded conceptual model for generating enchantment with the archaeological record across both professional audiences and broader publics. With reference to the European Commission-funded EMOTIVE Project, I articulate one particular strand of this model: facilitated dialogue. Alongside exploring the role of digital culture in its advancement, I argue that an enchantment-led approach is imperative for achieving a truly socially-beneficial archaeological discipline.
Through a critical review of inter- and transdisciplinarity in archaeology, this paper examines the power relationships within archaeology with regards to collaborators within and beyond the academy. By making a case for an archaeology that openly collaborates across disciplines and knowledge systems, but also more firmly articulates itself and its value, the paper makes a case for an engaged and problematising archaeology for the future. © 2018, © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
The largest corpus of clay figurines from the Cretan Bronze Age comes from ritual mountain sites known as peak sanctuaries. In this paper, we explore how the ‛Figures in 3D’ project contributes to our understanding of these figurines, aiding in the study of the technologies of figurine construction and the typological analysis of distinctive styles. We discuss how the project has, more unexpectedly, begun to create new dialogues and opportunities for moving between the material and the digital by taking a multifaceted approach that combines the data from 3D models and 3D prints with experimental work in clay.
This study investigated the purpose and effectiveness of giving outpatients an opportunity to engage in art activities while receiving dialysis treatment. A mixed method study was conducted. 21 semi-structured interviews were conducted with outpatients attending the dialysis unit and 13 surveys of clinicians were completed. The principle reasons to partake in the art activity programme included: to pass time, to relieve boredom, to be creative, to try something new, distraction from concerns, to stay positive and to achieve something new. Patients who did not participate in the programme pass their time primarily by watching TV or sleeping. All staff who partook in the survey were satisfied with the programme and wanted it to continue. Our findings indicate that the creative arts programme is viewed positively by staff and patients alike, and might be useful in other hospital departments. Further in depth qualitative research would be useful to interrogate the potential effect of engagement in art on positive mental health and quality of life for patients with chronic conditions.
The multisensory aspect of the museum, while neglected for many years, is undergoing a resurgence as museum workers have begun to push towards re-establishing the senses as a major component of museum pedagogy. However, for many museums a major roadblock lies in the need to conserve rare objects, a need that prevents visitors from being able to interact with many objects in a meaningful way. This issue can be potentially overcome by the rapidly evolving field of 3D printing, which allows museum visitors to handle authentic replicas without damaging the originals. However, little is known about how museum visitors consider this approach, how they understand it and whether these surrogates are welcome within museums. A front-end evaluation of this approach is presented, finding that visitors were enthusiastic about interacting with touchable 3D printed replicas, highlighting potential educational benefits among other considerations. Suggestions about the presentation of touchable 3D printed replicas are also discussed.
The museum visit is a collaborative activity: people typically visit museums in social groups, and conversation between group members has been highlighted as a key aspect for an engaging visitor experience. In this work, we detail initial findings and experience results from the design and evaluation of a group-based digital storytelling journey, where visitor-to-visitor engagement takes place under the frame of an interactive, mobile technology-based story. The results suggest not only the potential to cultivate social interaction between individuals using their own mobile devices, but also to generate immediate transcultural and transgenerational understanding and cooperation in situ.
Studies have revealed positive evidence of the use of art therapy programs and visual art works to facilitate the healing process of patients and staff in healthcare facilities. These researches have highlighted a strong link between the content of the images and their impact on the reactions of patients to pain, stress and anxiety. In this regard, hospitals are choosing artworks based on the positive evidences recorded. As a result of the contribution art has, in the provision of a better healing environment for patients, staffs and service users, this article is a literature review that highlights the results of various researches on cancer patients and a pilot study, which explores the effective use of visual arts and art therapy programs in healthcare facilities. The objective is to create a foundation for further investigations into the subject of healing with visual art and other art therapy programs in health care. Furthermore, a pilot study was conducted at the Near East hospital to evaluate the visual arts used within the hospital interior.
Additive manufacturing poses a number of challenges to conventional understandings of
materiality, including the so-called archaeological record. In particular, concepts such as real, virtual,
and authentic are becoming increasingly unstable, as archaeological artefacts and assemblages can be
digitalised, reiterated, extended and distributed through time and space as 3D printable entities. This paper
argues that additive manufacturing represents a ‘grand disciplinary challenge’ to archaeological practice
by offering a radical new generative framework within which to recontextualise and reconsider the nature
of archaeological entities specifically within the domain of digital archaeology.
There are thousands of forgotten archaeological archives hidden away in repositories all over the world, lost worlds where many scholars have toiled away for years, trying to record every detail and bit of information available about rare and precious archaeological objects in an attempt to bring order and understanding to an almost incomprehensible past. This paper discusses how these archives can be approached through Huhtamo’s definition of media archaeology as a ‘historically-attuned enterprise’ that involves ‘excavating forgotten media-cultural phenomena’, focusing on the MicroPasts digitization project. It is shown that greater utilization of digital media simply changes and extends the terms of engagement, accessibility, and flow of information from antiquated archaeological archives to the community and back again.
This article investigates the use of 3D immersive virtual environments and 3D prints for interaction with past material culture over traditional observation without manipulation. Our work is motivated by studies in heritage, museum, and cognitive sciences indicating the importance of object manipulation for understanding present and ancient artifacts. While virtual immersive environments and 3D prints have started to be incorporated in heritage research and museum displays as a way to provide improved manipulation experiences, little is known about how these new technologies affect the perception of our past. This article provides first results obtained with three experiments designed to investigate the benefits and tradeoffs in using these technologies. Our results indicate that traditional museum displays limit the experience with past material culture, and reveal how our sample of participants favor tactile and immersive 3D virtual experiences with artifacts over visual non-manipulative experiences with authentic objects.
Archaeology has a long tradition of volunteer involvement but also faces considerable challenges in protecting and understanding a geographically widespread, rapidly dwindling and ever threatened cultural resource. This paper considers a newly launched, multi-application crowdsourcing project called MicroPasts that enables both community-led and massive online contributions to high quality research in archaeology, history and heritage. We reflect on preliminary results from this initiative with a focus on the technical challenges, quality control issues and contributors motivations.
Winifred Lamb was a pioneering archaeologist in the Aegean and Anatolia. She studied classics at Newnham College, Cambridge, and subsequently served in naval intelligence alongside J. D. Beazley during the final stages of the First World War. As war drew to a close, Sydney Cockerell, Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, invited Lamb to be the honorary keeper of Greek antiquities. Over the next 40 years she created a prehistoric gallery, marking the university’s contribution to excavations in the Aegean, and developed the museum’s holdings of classical bronzes and Athenian figure-decorated pottery. Lamb formed a parallel career excavating in the Aegean. She was admitted as a student of the British School at Athens and served as assistant director on the Mycenae excavations under Alan Wace and Carl Blegen. After further work at Sparta and on prehistoric mounds in Macedonia, Lamb identified and excavated a major Bronze Age site at Thermi on Lesbos. She conducted a brief excavation on Chios before directing a major project at Kusura in Turkey. She was recruited for the Turkish language section of the BBC during the Second World War, and after the cessation of hostilities took an active part in the creation of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara.
The first half of the twentieth century saw vast changes in the running of the Fitzwilliam Museum, particularly in terms of
the growing professionalization and specialization of the whole institution. This paper draws on largely unpublished sources
to trace the development of the Greek and Roman department and the way in which the Museum acquired and curated antiquities.
It begins by setting the scene with an overview of the Museum from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century, before focusing
specifically on the vicissitudes of the Greek and Roman collection. The whole paper is loosely framed around the tenure of
Winifred Lamb, second Honorary Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities, who joined the Museum a decade after the post of Honorary
Keeper was established, and left only when the first salaried Senior Assistant Keeper of the Antiquities department – Richard
Nicholls – was appointed in 1958.
The value of touch and object handling in museums is little understood, despite the overwhelming weight of anecdotal evidence which confirms the benefits of physical interaction with objects.
Touch in Museums presents a ground-breaking overview of object handling from both historical and scientific perspectives. The book aims to establish a framework for understanding the role of object handling for learning, enjoyment, and health. The broad range of essays included explores the many different contexts for object handling, not only within the museum, but extending beyond it to hospitals, schools and the wider community.
The combination of theoretical analysis, policy assessment and detailed case material make Touch in Museums invaluable reading for students and professionals of museology or cultural heritage.
Abstract This article examines the ways in which the narrative or story form generates personal connections between visitors and content and thus is ideally suited to the work of museums. Starting with a review of the qualities of narrative, the article provides specific examples of how stories and storytelling have worked in exhibitions, public programs and outreach to schools.
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