Introduction
When embarking on the path of reflection and questioning, especially when doing so in an interdisciplinary way, where one often encounters new areas and fields of knowledge it is always a good habit to ponder about the foundations and provenance of our information and our sources. How are we using them? When I use the term ‘modalities’ for example, I wish to indicate a diversity of data types including, textual sources that are comprehended through reading as well as through our other senses, such as sight, sound, touch and even smell.
Also whereas in science our epistemology (and questioning) assumes a closed ontology, in design we can easily deal with the notion of an ontology that is ‘composable’. In the second instance knowledge is regarded not as an object that is part of a closed set but rather as a relational condition that changes through out the iterations of the design research process.
My perspective is further informed by the notion of Media Design as one whose primary objective is communication not necessarily as ‘broadcasting’ but rather involving the exchange of knowledge created through participation (response emerging from message reception) and reification (beyond reception and into a concretisation of the design idea) within a diversity of communities. What opportunities exist for design from this (hopefully ecological) and multimodal perspective, particularly involving heritage?
My discussion in the current essay proceeds along the following relational qualities of design:
I Openness and indeterminacy
II Non-linear and epigenetic
My conclusions include remarks about possible Dialogues with Otherness in Twenty First Century Museum.
I Openness and indeterminacy
Design that recognises itself as participatory, collaborative and interdisciplinary is an ‘open’ or ‘indeterminate’ activity, since there is room for participants to construct their own meanings in relation to the design objective(s).
[Insert graphic here illustrating the activity of design.]
In the context of heritage it also includes dealing with the affective capital (e.g. the creative, historical, intellectual and spiritual subject matter that is potentially a bequeathment to future generations) of stakeholder communities.
[Insert graphic here about re-mediation.]
Memory (human as well as machine) plays a very important role in the gathering and parceling of this capital. Through its capacity human experience is opened to re-mediation. It is this re-mediation (as a form of reinterpretation) that enables media design to create interactive experiences of heritage items, including museum collections.
[Insert graphic here that shows how we think CoPs and CoIs interact in the cultural sector.]
Etienne Wenger described Communities of Practice (CoPs) as ill-defined groups of people brought together by profession or work circumstance. Communities of Interests (CoIs) on the other hand are informal groups of people that come together because they share an interest in some topic, or activity, or hobby. CoPs and CoIs exist in symbiotic and complementary relation: “they intertwine over time converging and diverging: In moments of negotiation of meaning they come into contact and affect each other (p. 85, emphasis in the text is mine)”.
Members in CoPs have overlapping competences and often play different roles that are complementary. Perhaps they share a joint enterprise, or maybe their practices occur in a larger context (e.g. the National Board of Antiquities or the Association of Museums of Contemporary Art). Such contexts frame activities enabling the possibilities of: 1. Guidelines for mutual accountability (What matters, what does not, why) 2. Shared repertoires (Vocabularies that take a special meaning, tools used in a particular way).
In our model, CoPs made of curators and other museum workers can actually interact with and guide CoIs whose membership comprises grassroots groups in gathering and crafting the materials for an exhibition. This way of working can have many benefits including strengthening the ties between the communities and the institution.
Case Study One: Re-discovering Vrouw Maria
[Insert here image of Vrouw Maria.]
During our work in creating the 3D virtual reconstruction of the Vrouw Maria, a CoI in the form of divers in Finland was a signpost of our design considerations. According to the archeologists and curators as informal historians, these enthusiasts constitute not only a source of knowledge but also are active participants attending exhibitions and organising events and activities.
[Show images of the ideation workshop.]
During our ideation phase, when we were creating the information architecture and interaction of the system this was one of the groups that was reified into the model through the use of personas and scenarios that guided our design decisions.
[Show images of scenario design.]
[Show images of Vrouw Maria in Germany.]
[Show 2:00 video of Re-discovering Vrouw Maria.]
II Non-linear and epigenetic
From a communications perspective design can also be said to involve dialogue articulated through iterative cycles. This dialogue involving human agents gathers the not only the subject matter and the envisioned object of design but also a fair amount of the ancillary matter used in its elaboration. Nelson and Stolterman propose that because design is compositional, it “pulls a variety of elements into relation to one another.” This reification (or concretising) of the imagined object occurs through the use and sharing of a variety of representational strategies, including simulation.
As embodied experience, (re)presentation can dynamically reveal insight as is the case with Eisenstein’s and Vertov’s Kuleshov’s effect, or let us ‘see through’ as noted in Nelson and Stolterman’s Diathenic Graphologue. In the earlier example from cinema meaning comes forth at the junction between the two successive frames. In the latter a form of discourse comes into being through interpretation using visual and sound formations:
“The process transports newly-formed seminal images of that-which-is-desired from the birthplace of their creation, from within a single individual’s imagination, connecting them with feelings and emotions along the way, where they’re imprinted with details from the color and texture of the histories of the clients and the character of the designers. They make their way into the shared conscious world of the senses–to be more fully formed and synthesized in collaboration with other designers’ formative imaginations.” (The Design Way, Nelson and Stolterman, p. 177)
Again, in both cases the notion of framing comes into play, this time in relation to an evolving new structural design. Projections of the understanding of one domain of knowledge onto another (as analogy and likeness) are used.
Case Study Two: Interactive Diorama
The Interactive Diorama of The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt, 1632, is an immersive 3D computer generated audio-visual landscape that includes human avatars with their own behaviour. The environment reacts to the visitor’s behaviour so that she (or he) experiences the simulation as an alternative reality. The simulation’s structure has two primary elements the first one being a closed narrative, similar to an embodied cinematic experience that communicates historical facts about the painting. The second one is an open simulation allowing for full navigation and interaction within the anatomical theatre space. While the first element has an epigenetic role, the second is meant as framing a non-linear interactive exploration.
[Show video 3:23 of Interactive Diorama of The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt, 1632.]
Conclusions
Having tasted the forbidden fruit, we cannot go back to a previous state of innocence. It is in this conflation of time and space through place where perhaps bridges can be built towards new dialogues with Otherness. Alejandro Iñárritu’s virtual reality’s installation, Carne y Arena.