Seminar 3 - The Role of Technology in Supporting Art and Cultural Heritage Experiences

The first part of the seminar covered through the history of museums and how the overall experience and interaction has changed with the rise of technology. Then continued to tell us about the Cleveland Artlense Museum, renowned for its groundbreaking technology, which has proven to maximize engagement with the exhibits. Next section was the impact of augmenting reality in the museum experiences. How this technology has progressed over time and went on to some examples where artists have put the use of AR in exhibiting their art forms. The final section was an explanation about the involvement of tech-based art displays in environment settings. The presenter showed us an interesting work of Gustav Klimt at Atelier des Lumiere technology show which displayed the work using light shows. Below provided is the video for the above-explained artwork.

Workshop

In the workshop activity, each team were given a box with a certain task and items inside it.

Each box included some images, books, folk tales and background information related to each of the topics. A detailed design brief was included to specify the design process and the deliverables.

Our task was to keep in mind with the technology and the probes provided in the box we had to design a digital experience to enhance Limerick Treaty Stone for the persona group of primary school children.

In the brainstorming session, we were able to discuss and understand the heritage history of the Limerick treaty stone. Being a new resident to Ireland, I was able to understand the history of the Limerick Treaty stone and past which was explained to the whole team by one of the elder members with more knowledge. This helped us to start with the experience design.

We came up with an enhanced mixed reality museum experience where kids can role-play through the history and enact the war that happened before the treaty stone was laid. This experience will be set up in a space in the King’s Castle with designs and spaces that depict the history. There will be huge screens which virtually shows the reality of the wars by enhancing the realistic experience for kids. There will be two teams for the war types of equipment with laser and augmented technology to give a feel of actual war. Our main idea was to allow kids to have an experience in history through playing and enacting rather than just the normal walk guided museum tour. There were a final debate and clash on viewpoints that happened in our team in finalising the concept. One agreed to a point that every war must end in peace and deciding to end the experience in a traditional computer decided way. Whereas we few felt that children should have the power in deciding the fate of the war.

Based on the ending of the play there will be an explanation of why peace is important in war. If the kids continue to go for the war then there will be a simulation which explains them peace is better and the impacts of war on normal life which could be a learning curve for them and also a deeper experience in understanding the Limerick treaty stones history. This climax decision fate was kept as an open discussion to the class. Of which most of them agreed to us that kids like to fight and play and understand the importance of peace.