eVENNtually I will get going on this project

click on the image so that you can read it more clearly.
For this version of the diagram I explored four domains that were on my initial diagram in greater detail: Storytelling, Imagined Realms, Informal Education and Sacred Spaces. I found that two domains that the 4 topics overlap is on the web and in museums. This fits really well with my assumptions that I made going into the project about how museums are used and the potential for overlap between museums and the web. I do see that another area to consider is games- non traditional gaming. I am not sure about what I mean by this but I am going to continue to explore this as I go out now and research precendence for my project.

CONCEPT
Historically, museums and cultural art institutions have displayed relics and art of “foreign” countries and lands via intricate exhibition designs. While this method of display serves the purpose of representation and documentation, the rich histories and provenance of the objects are often not communicated to the viewer in an adequate and engaging manner. I am interested in investigating alternative methods for the presentation, representation and communication of cultural property using a set of tangkas that were originally designed by Situ Panchen and are currently housed by the Rubin Museum of Art, New York that can be traced back to his seat Palpung Monastery in Tibet, and because of time and the Chinese Cultural Revolution, have been displaced to various locations all over the world as a case study. The set’s original locale- a monastery is in ruins and so at the moment the only way to view the work is in museums and/or photographs. This relocation of art poses several questions that are worth considering, including:
- How are various cultures of the world represented on an international stage?
- How do museums and other sacred spaces re-contextualize culture?
- How can technology reconstruct and/or contribute to history?
- What kinds of stories are being told about the art?
- How can something politically charged be explained to a mainstream audience?
Over the course of the next four weeks I hope to prototype a few potential vehicles for viewing this art in a more culturally sensitive and exciting manner.

I hope to prototype a few potential vehicles for viewing Himalayan art in a culturally sensitive and accessible manner.

THE ART
Here is a link to the set of 24 images that were originally from the Palpung monastary in Tibet.

PRECEDENCE
The Mellon International Dunhuang Archive
http://www.artstor.org/what-is-artstor/w-html/col-mellon-dunhuang.shtml

"Using digital cameras, a team from Northwestern University, in collaboration with the Dunhuang Research Academy (an organization in China that seeks to preserve and document the caves), has photographed the wall paintings and sculpture in more than forty of the cave grottos."
This project is very focused on the documentation and preservation of the caves. Because of the intense study of the subject, users can now go to the archive and get a real sense of what the caves looked like. Although I don't have high resolution images to use, I do have some great textual sources to pull from and I hope that I will be able to use these sources to create a record of some sort.
DOMAINS: sacred spaces, archive, imagined realms, history, digital technology

The Himalayan Art Resource
http://www.himalayanart.org/



This is a website that is funded by the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation (the same Rubins who created the Rubin Museum of Art). The website is " an educational online resource with over 30,000 images" of Himalayan art. The undertaking is enormous and involves museums and scholars from all over the world. The documentation is exceptional.
While this project is more of a database, I like the way that they used all kinds of sources to ultimately create a living history for this art. I hope to make a piece that people can use as a reference.
DOMAINS: digital technology, archive,history, website

Asian Games: The Art of the Contest
http://www.asiasociety.org/arts/asiangames/


The Asia Society created an online game to supplement its in-gallery exhibition on ancient games of Asia.
Here is an experiment in incorporating gaming into the construct of the exhibition. I do not think that this is a particular great attempt, however it is a step in the direction that I would like to go with my project. Clearly, however, the accessibility of this kind of project is something worth appreciating.
DOMAINS: digital technology, history, website, games, informal education, museum

Calakmul: The Adventure

Interactive software exhibit that explores the past culture of the Maya at Calakmul in the Yukatan Penninsula
While I cannot actually play the game (I don't believe that it's finished yet), this is very close to the end product that I would like. It's a game, it has a narrative, it still focuses on history, yet somehow I find it a little too obvious. I think that I want my project to feel more like an exploration of space.
DOMAINS: digital technology, sacred spaces, imagined realms, games, informal education, museum

Sid Meier's Civilization
http://www.civilization.com/


This is a video game that allows users to create their own civilization and suffer the consequences for each action that they take on their journey. The game has been so successful that it is being integrated into elementary school curriculums in select schools in the country.
This game is revolutionary in that it's a history geek game that kids actually enjoy playing. Although I find the graphical treatment a bit difficult personally, I appreciate the role playing and strategy that is required to be successful in this game. Importantly, I need to investigate what it is that makes this game so much fun for people (particularly elementary school aged kids) to play.
DOMAINS: games, digital technology, sacred spaces, informal education, public interaction, imagined realms, storytelling

Ancient Spaces
http://ancient.arts.ubc.ca/


"Using the technology behind online video games, we want to help you discover, research and explore the ancient civilizations of Greece, Egypt, and the Americas." They created (and are perfecting software to help art historians and students to recreate ancient spaces. Not yet fully functional as far as I can tell.
This game is also very close to what I want to do, however I'm not creating a software. I like how it appeals to both academic and laymen audiences.
DOMAINS: history, sacred spaces, imagined realms, digital technology, games, informal education

And

This is an animation by Steven J. Baughman that approaches the topic of civilization and history through an investigation of maps.First of all, the fact that this is short animation caught explained the purpose of maps so succinctly is great, however I feel that the beauty in this piece is that it inspires creativity about history. DOMAINS: animation, history, digital technology, symbolism

ExploreArt
http://www.exploreart.org/exploreArt/exploreArt.html

Rubin Museum of Art's Educational multimedia website
The storytelling of this site is strong, and the educational content is great, but I find that the site is almost too polished to be truly accessible. I don't really understand why that is.
DOMAINS: museum, history, storytelling, public interaction

Ayiti: The Cost of Life
http://www.unicef.org/voy/explore/rights/explore_3142.html

"... challenging role playing game created by the High School students in Global Kids with the game developers at Gamelab, in which you take responsibility for a family of five in rural Haiti."
I like the fact that this game is about activism and social responsibility, but it's not preachy.
DOMAINS: games, storytelling, public interaction, imagined realms

Radford Outdoor Augmented Reality Project
http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv/wb/180461
Matt Dunleavy will be investigating the types of skills that can be acquired and honed from the integration of real-world/environmental play and computer-generated data. According to the article, user testing has been done for games about historical subjects such as "Buffalo Hunt" a game about Native American history. I find these sorts of projects really unique and thinking outside of the box is required to play. It's successful because you don't need too many tools to play and the novelty of the kind of play is fascinating. DOMAINS: history, games, public interaction, imagined realms, storytelling, informal education

Spore
http://www.spore.com/ftl

A video game that allows people to understand the concept of evolution by forcing users to help evolve a creature beyond its initial "spore" state. Other than being fun, this game takes a topic and helps the user to understand it by gameplay and narrative. These are elements that I feel will make my project successful. DOMAINS: history, informal education, imagined realms, storytelling, fantasy

Asia Society: Guided Tours
http://www.asiasocietymuseum.com/gt_main.asp?power=off&sFile=intro

Guided tours of collection via slides. Museum tours are expected. I want to work against this tendency when I create my project because it has a certain element of the "other" which I want to avoid.DOMAINS: history, museums, website, accessibility, viewpoints

Heilbrun Timeline of Art History
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/splash.htm


An interactive timeline of events that happened in art history spanning, millions of years, international. Created by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and includes objects from their permanent collection. The timeline is a great resource, but I like it because it provides a source for contextualization. Somehow, I feel that my project needs to tie in what is happening in other parts of the world. DOMAINS: history, museums, website, contextualization, sacred spaces, imagined realms, digital technology

National Air and Space Museums Quicktime VR Artifact Photography
http://www.nasm.si.edu/interact/qtvr/uhc/qtvr.htm

360 degree photographs of artifacts from the Smithsonian Collection. 360 degree views of objects! It's amazing, it's in situ and it really is technically beautifyl .DOMAINS: digital technology, history, museum, public interaction, sacred spaces, conservation

Grave of the Fireflies
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095327/

"A tragic film covering a young boy and his little sister's struggle to survive in Japan during World War II." An emotional story that brings the historical topic of the second world war to life. This animation makes a historical topic personal by creating a strong narrative. I don't know if I want to include a narrative in this project yet, but if I do, this will be a strong reference. DOMAINS: history, animation, emotional interaction, subjectivity, viewpoints, imagined realms, fantasy, informal education

Kapilavastu (Buddha)
http://www.amazon.com/Kapilavastu-Buddha-Vol-Osamu-Tezuka/dp/1932234438

"Tezuka, the master of Japanese comics, mixes his own characters with history as deftly as he transfers the most profound, complex emotions onto extremely cartoony characters, and his work defies easy categorization." (language from Amazon) I like the way that this book mixes humor and history. This project is an interesting source for me because it appeals directly to my pop culture interests which I think are very accessible. DOMAINS: comics, history, informal education, storytelling, handmade technology, imagined realms, fantasy

Petra: The Lost City of Stone
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/petra/interactives/

In this exhibition, The American Museum of Natural History created several interesting interactive components to explain the geography and history of Petra. This exhibit was really inspirational. In terms of actual artifacts from Petra- there were few, but these dynamic visuals made the show something of substance. The graphics were awe inspiring (because the nature of the space) and I think that anything that can build a sense of excitement about a city that is no longer functioning is worth looking into. DOMAINS: museums, history, sacred spaces, imagined realms, public interaction, preservation, digital technology, storytelling


Venn diagram with previous projects inserted

BOOKS

• Digital Museum, The: A Think Guide
  Herminia Din and Phyllis Hecht, editors; introduction by Selma Thomas
• Museums and the Web 2008: Selected Papers from an International Conference
  Edited by Jennifer Trant and David Bearman
• Wired Museum, The: Emerging Technology and Changing Paradigms
  Edited by Katherine Jones-Garmil; introduction by Maxwell Anderson
• Virtual and the Real, The: Media in the Museum
  Edited by Ann Mintz and Selma Thomas
• Digital Technologies and the Museum Experience
  Edited by Kevin Walker and Loic Tallon

1st Person Accounts:

- Karl Debreczeny, Curator Rubin Museum of Art
- David Jackson, Scholar, Himalayan Art
- Situ Panchen Chokyi Jungne (18th c.)
- Jeff Watt, Director Himalayan Art Resource
- Kristina Dy- Liacco, Head Librarian Latse Library,NYC