Figure 1: From top to bottom: Gradually zooming from an initial bird’s-eye view of the visualization to a mid- point view showing several sketches in temporal prox imity to close-up views of one individual drawing. Invited Article Linking structure, texture and context in a visualization of historical drawings by Frederick William IV (1795-1861)
Katrin Glinka, Christopher Pietsch, Carsten Dilba, Marian Dörk
Abstract: In this article we present a case study on digital representation of the art historical research and metadata brought together for a scientific collection catalogue by the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg. The resulting interface aims at linking the structure and texture of a collection of drawings by Frederick William IV of Prussia (1795–1861) with additional contextual information. The article describes the context of the larger research project and presents the resulting visualization and interaction techniques specifically designed for dynamic exploration along time and subjects. Keywords: information visualization, metadata, zoomable user interface, direct visualization, case study, inventory catalogue, digital art history Link: https://uclab.fh-potsdam.de/fw4/en
1 and ensure conservation3. Thus, Introduction institutional exhibition and publication activities target a broad range of »Every idle moment [...] he draws different activities and audiences. For on paper; sketches for great historic the non-scholarly public, the most pieces, [...] persons and things that visible has been so far the physical he has seen while travelling, mythical exhibition in a museum or gallery, beings and allegorical matters. He even often accompanied by an exhibition paints heaven and hell; and quite often catalogue. Adding to that, the scholarly biblical things.« and expert public seeks to be informed on the research conducted in the Johann Friedrich Herbart (1810)2 specialised departments of a collecting institution on a more scientific level. According to its definition, a museum Among these publishing activities that does not only serve as a (semi-) public are aimed at an expert public are in space for education, indulgement or ventory or collection catalogues that even enjoyment. Its self-perception provide domain experts and researchers and objective is deeply rooted in with a fully developed art historical ex an obligation to conduct research amination of a set of artefacts, which Linking structure, texture and context
are often thematically focused on as the first case study. Accordingly, well-defined parts of a collection. The the existing digital resources had to be still predominant medium of publi analyzed together with professionals cation for both non-scholarly exhi bi from various areas of the foundation. tion catalogues and scientific collec We conducted a first co-creation work tion catalogues is the printed book shop4 in order to identify promising format. Museums and other collec collec tion areas and aspects that could ting institutions have meanwhile suit our aim to conceive a dynamic vi understood that the digitization of sual ization using the existing digital their collections is an inevitable need sources and material provided by the in order to provide reproductions of SPSG. After these early stages of the objects and artworks for research, research project, we decided to use a make them accessible via e.g. databases fully developed digital inventory cat with web interfaces, and secure the alogue of the drawings by Frederick conservation of sources and material. William IV of Prussia. The decision Correspondingly, the Prussian Palaces was mainly influenced by the ambition and Gardens Foundation Berlin- to explore the potential of visualization Brandenburg (SPSG) has started to as a tool that does not only allow for employ digital forms of publication an overview (e.g. analytical visu al i and is working on digitizing their col zations of metadata5), but also serves lection. However, as is the case for an exploratory gateway to the col many collecting institutions engaged with digitization efforts, it is still an lection by combining overview and open question how to make the newly detail (on a visual as well as textual digitized collections available for open level) while also integrating contextual exploration and visual analysis. observations and scientific findings. The inventory catalogue hadready al In this context, the objective of been published digitally, but in a static our overall research project “VIKUS– format, comprising high-reso lution Visual i zing Cultural Collections” is digital copies of 1492 sheets of draw to examine the potentials of visu al ings by the King alongside the cor ization techniques when applied to, responding metadata and a full art and developed for, digitized cultural historical analysis, indexing, and inter collec tions. Given the fact that the pretation in several object-related and SPSG manages and administers several thematic texts. historical buildings, palaces, gardens, vast collections of paintings, furniture, sculptures, porcelain, drawings, and Aspirations other historical objects (that have not all been entirely digitized, yet), the eing the first use case developed first step of our research project was Bin the framework of the VIKUS to identify a suitable subset from the research project, the visualization range of collections that could serve of drawings by Frederick William
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Figure 2: Hovering over a keyword (top) and selecting the keyword “Architecture” (bottom).
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IV serves as an object of study that important distinction also served as a is, on a more general note, aimed at vantage point for Benjamin Zweig in investigating the potentials inherent his “attempt to help define [...] what to visual explo ration of digitized »digital art history« is.”7 Reflecting collections. In the scope of our the course of the project, we were research, we develop and evaluate challenged to transfer or rather graphical interfaces that are aimed at translate a digitized art historical source enabling interactive exam ination of into a digital art histor ical source. cultural objects. We thereby practically More specifically said, although the contribute to the overall challenge source for our vis ualization already is a that archives, muse ums, libraries and digitally published inventory catalogue, other collecting institutions are now its internal logic, framework, and facing, namely the need to improve structure still resembles non-digital the accessibility of their digitized ways of working and researching in inventories while also providing art history. Thus, we had to identify new modes of engagement with properties, metadata, and structures digitized artifacts. While conducting together with our project partner, applied research and working in close and in turn communicate the logic collaboration with cultural institutions and functionality of data-driven visu - in this case the SPSG - we also wish alizations. Our self-proclaimed goal to engage in the ongoing discourses consequently led to interdisciplinary that are prevailing in disciplines like co-creation, continuous integration computer sciences and visualization and discussion of approaches and research, (digital) humanities, (digital) priorities. Another feature that devel art history, museology, as well as design oped throughout the process was the research and adjoining disciplines. aim to widen the audience that might engage with the collection of drawings. This decidedly interdisciplinary approach offers the possibility to As pointed out earlier (and em build upon and draw from previous phasized in interviews with our disciplinary and interdisciplinary cooperation partner), the inventory research. At the same time, it also catalogue is mainly published for a poses the challenge to translate scientific expert public and is distinctly between different aac demic cultures, conceived within the research de methodologies and assumptions. To partment (Department Palaces and put this in concrete terms, digitizing Collections) of the foundation. The a collection does not implicate that King’s drawings are predominantly this process is nested in a thoroughly consulted by researchers in the domain digital approach. As Johanna Drucker of art history and architecture as well has pointed out, there is a distinction as by experts on Prussian history. Only between digitized art history and on the occasion of the King’s 150th digital art history6. This in our view day of death in 2011, the drawings
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were made publicly accessible in an hand-written notations by the King exhibition at the Roman Baths in or markings by later researchers), Sanssouci Park.8 With the visualization, watermarks, measurements of the we built upon the scientific content of sheet, time and year, material, title(s) the inventory catalogue and enhanced of corresponding thematic text(s), list it with contextual information within of corresponding secondary literature, the visualization, aiming at making and a hierarchical index-based list the collection of drawings explorable of descriptors. The descriptors were also by a non-expert audience. We are worked out by the group of art investigating if and how novel visu al historians during the analysis and izations of cultural collections and the research process alongside a controlled corresponding art historical research vocabulary and were developed in two can be employed to also encourage parallel strings: a thematic order and innovative ideas in the field of cultural a topographical order.9 In accordance mediation and be used to communicate with our aspiration to make the art scientific findings to a broader public. historical sources explorable by a non- expert public, we also included the content of the exhibition catalogue10 Drawing on data into our choice of data. The texts from the exhibition catalogue – in rederick William IV of Prussia (1795 contrast to the object description and F– 1861) left a collection of drawings interpretation – were written and behind. They bear witness to historical published for a broader audience and events such as wars and revolutions, offered background information on literary influences or personal ob the King’s life, prevailing interests, sessions with the devil. Numerous and historical context. Although our sheets reveal the planning eye of aim was to only use existing digitized the King in the form of architectural material and leave the art historical visions and dreamy drafts. So far, 1492 content and structure of the data sheets of drawings produced by the intact, we decided to manually extract King have been fully accessed. The the information from the exhibition existing inventory catalogue that was catalogue and request additional published by the SPSG online in 2013 information supplied by historians of comprised the high-resolution digital the SPSG in order to create a custom copies of the drawings and sketches timeline structure. Nonetheless, the and corresponding metadata. Not all, extent of work that had to be put into but most of the following fields were the manual gathering and structuring available for each sheet: an image id, of the additional timeline data was still an inventory number derived from the moderate. Hence, for the most part we internally used database, a description only used the existing data derived of the sheet, an art historical commen from the art historical research and tary or interpretation, labelling (e.g. identified those properties that could
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be used to offer dynamic insights. By drawing and several time periods. In focusing and limiting the data mainly the following we briefly describe these to existing parameters and content, three parts. we wish to illustrate how digitized art historical research can be reused and The drawings are positioned ac adapted when developing a digital and cording to their year of creation in hor data-driven exploratory gateway. izontally arranged columns. As some sketches do not have specific dates or years, but rather estimated time ranges, Interaction and the median of their estimated range is used for the positioning. Within the Design columns, sketches are sorted vertically based on their complexity, i.e., the he visualization is conceived as number of motives, themes, and places Ta dynamic canvas arranging the that are associated with each sketch. King’s drawings by their creation year, When the interface is launched (see linked with contextual information, and Figure 1, top), the initial view offers a made accessible through interactive bird’s-eye view on the complete set of filtering and zooming capabilities. On sketches with each of the 1492 images the one hand, the interface mechanics being displayed at a relatively small size are inspired by zoomable interfaces11 of about 20 mm on a 13” laptop display. and more recent applications to Similar to the image plots promoted cultural collections.12 On the other by Lev Manovich and colleagues,13 hand, the design is based on the re it is almost indistinguishable shades curring wish from our collaborators and shapes that can be differentiated to be able to see and explore the collection along temporal and thematic from this perspective. In order to gain aspects while not abstracting the a better sense of the actual artifacts, individual drawings into aggregated it is necessary to move closer to the shapes. Thus, the overall aim for the individual items. For this purpose, interface is to reveal structures of the canvas serves as a continuously temporal and topical distributions in zoomable space, allowing for the the collection that invite the viewer gradual increase of detail for particular to explore the collection and provide segments of the arrangement of images. seamless access to the rich textures of Zoom operations can be carried out individual drawings in high resolution. either through the mouse wheel or by The interface has three main parts: 1) performing scrolling or zoom gestures the zoomable canvas containing the on touchpads and touch-enabled scans of the drawings, 2) the index- displays. By zooming into particular based list descriptors or “keywords”, groups of images, the thumbnails representing the main subjects and continuously grow into larger images places associated with the drawings, with a higher resolution. By clicking and 3) contextual information for each and dragging, it is possible to pan the
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Figure 3: The timeline provides historical context at varying levels of detail.
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canvas in all directions. The viewer with this word move to the bottom of can examine sketches in the same year the timeline and are displayed with by performing vertical movements a lower opacity. The drawings that and shift in time between different match the keyword selection remain year columns by moving horizontally. above the timeline. As more and Besides zooming and panning, it is also more tags are clicked, the selection possible to select individual sketches of drawings gets more constrained, (by clicking or tapping on them) in resulting in smaller image columns. order to immediately focus on this Clicking on a selected keyword again particular sketch and display it in cancels its selection. Changing the high resolution. Once an image is in selection of keywords also changes the focus, the neighboring images fade out display of the remaining keywords. As and contextual information becomes some keywords may not be associated available on the right side of the with the drawings in a given selection, display. In the same visual context of they will be hidden, making space for the canvas, it is now possible to further more related keywords to be revealed, zoom into the image of the drawing to thus increasing the level of accuracy or closely inspect the texture of the paper specificity in the descriptors’ content. and even the grain of the pencil strokes (see Figure 1, bottom). In addition to the general contex tualization of the drawings provided In the top part of the interface, by their temporal arrangement and the most prolific subjects and places the keyword visualization, the inter are displayed as a horizontal list of face features two additional levels keywords that are derived from the of in-depth information about the index-based list of descriptors. The list collection. On the one hand, a zoom contains between 30 and 50 words and able timeline just below the years phrases, depending on the size of the presents biographical and historical screen. Akin to word clouds, the font information in the temporal context sizes represent the relative frequency of the drawings. On the other hand, of sketches per subject. The keywords the metadata, descriptions, and art are sorted alphabetically to allow historical interpretation for each viewers to quickly locate a subject drawing contained in the collection is they might be looking for. Hovering displayed in the single-image view in a over a keyword highlights all the text panel. In addition, the information sketches that are associated with this panel contains links to in-depth subject (see Figure 3, top). Ironically, articles on specific topics pertinent the resulting aesthetic does remind to the collection. The detailed events of urban skylines, however, not those in the timeline are shown as soon as envisioned by Frederick William IV the user zooms into a particular period in Prussian times. When selecting a (see Figure 3). The timeline contains keyword, all images not associated 40 events related to Frederick William
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IV’s life as well as historical events This preliminary data is visualized in related to the political developments of form of the list of keywords, the image the time. These events are positioned plot, and the timeline. While the user right below the yearly columns in is able to gain a first overview and order to facilitate the establishment filter the visualization by keywords, a of a connection between the personal second data layer is being transferred and historical developments and the in the background, which holds a high- sketches that the King produced at the resolution version of each image. Each time. loading progress is communicated by a progress bar, which has been identified as being a good approach for reducing Technological the perceived waiting time for the user.15 As soon as the thumbnail resolution is implementation exceeded during the zoom interaction, the next level of detail is displayed n accordance with our aim to make with a version of the image with Ithe collection of drawings accessible higher resolution. In order to be able to and explorable by a broad audience, it provide a fluid user experience during was paramount for us to publish the the zooming and reloading of images, visualization in a web interface. Given a fast and efficient way of streaming the size of the collection and its digital the data was built. Conventionally, a images, we had to develop an approach website loads each image separately in that would allow us to display the a TCP request, which would in our case whole of the collection on a zoomable inevitably flood the user’s connection canvas, while at the same time be highly and browser. To bypass this limitation, responsive and reduce the loading we clustered the images into chunks of time. In order to be able to reconcile data blocks. These data blocks have an these objectives we developed new approximate size of 7mb and hold up technological approaches. Knowing to 150 images. Those chunks are then that waiting time while loading a streamed with a GZIP compression website is crucial to the perceived from a Content Delivery Network, quality of the user experience,14 it which provides the fastest transfer was one of our pronounced goals to speed, to the client’s browser. After a instantly be able to not only display chunk is received by the browser, the the first zoom level of the visualization, contained images are then pumped but to also allow for dynamic into the visualization as a detailed interaction right from the start. For version of each entry. The data chunks this first state of display (the bird’s- are kept under a size of 10mb, which is eye view) we employed a progressive the file size limit of cacheable objects loading approach which instantly in today’s browsers. In order to bring loads a data layer with low level of the desired visual features together, we detail. This first layer includes the combined the web visualization library metadata and thumbnail of each sheet. D3.js with the web graphics library pixi.
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js. The list of index keywords that are poral arrangement and thematic used for filtering the visualization, as filter functionality, complemented well as the timeline with the additional by supplementary biographical and contextual annotations, are rendered historical information, creates highly in HTML with CSS3 animations and interesting curve progressions, the area holding the images is rendered showing which subjects were most in a WebGL canvas. Consequently, we relevant for the king in a specific time were able to combine the benefits of or maybe readopted in later phases. HTML5 features, such as interactive A most significant example for this user interfaces and high performance observation is provided by the sheets CSS animations, with the performance covering Charlottenhof Palace. A of modern GPUs via WebGL. present to Frederick William IV by his father in 1825, Charlottenhof was supposed to be complemented Qualitative with new structures and become transformed into a mediterranean insights from villa. The curve progression along the timeline clearly shows the intensity quantitative views with which the crown prince worked on his later executed designs. he collection subset used for the Frederick William IV reacted quite Tcase study consists of approx. similarly to other biographical or 1500 data records, or about 20% of political events. His intensive planning the drawings executed by Frederick on the restructuring of his study and William IV which are preserved in the his apartment within the Berlin city collections of the Prussian Palaces and palace has to be seen in close regard Gardens Foundation. The first version to his marriage, celebrated only one of the online catalogue, launched by year before. And Frederick William’s the SPSG in 2013, did not cover all constant changes, improvements subjects evident in the King’s draw and alternative proposals for the ings to the same extend. Instead, spe construction of Babelsberg Palace, cific compilations – e.g. drawings of carried out for his brother in several Charlottenhof Palace within Park Sans phases, will also impressively become souci – were published almost entirely, visible along the timeline. However, while other series and subjects were this requires the recognition of all only represented by singular sheets. 6,900 records to obtain exact results. In reference to the significance and Then it will be possible to see how gain of knowledge expected from the the revolutionary events of the year actual visualization, one must take into 1848 left deep scars on the psyche of account that its data set is basically the King, for example visible in the identical with the 2013 catalogue and frequent depictions of demons and will only successively be complemented devils within his drawings of the time. with sheets missing so far. The tem His journeys to Italy will probably
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become just as evident on the timeline, grounded on the respective disciplines. showing how the king processed his During the next phase of our project, impressions. It is especially here, that we will carry out thorough user-tests highly interesting insights may be and additional empirical research in expected for both the expert user and order to be able to validate some of the interested layperson. Especially the functionalities and investigate the art and architecture historians will potential of our model when used for appreciate the ability to combine art historical research as well as the different index terms with each other. applicability for a broader audience. Presumably, it will be possible to obtain Regarding the technology, a new a more precise dating when combining framework for displaying collections of findings on individual drawings large image data has been successfully executed on the same sheet. For developed, opening up the potential example, some of the king’s drawings to scale the number of images up to depict the German piked helmet, only approximately 8000 images per canvas. used by the Prussian Army since The ability to fluidly combine a distant 1843. However, methodically it has to view with a detailed examination of be remarked that the arrangement of the high-resolution images has already the drawings along a timeline already raised considerable interest among represents the result of an art historical collecting institutions. We are now approach, taking into account the considering generalizing this specific individual fixed datings and other biographical and historical corner visualization into a framework that points. Researchers will therefore have may be applicable to other visual to be aware of circular reasoning; and collections with e.g. a broader variety yet, this new visualization may provide of visual qualities and higher contrast an effective and powerful tool to refine between the shapes and shades of and verify previous findings, datings images. and examinations. Notes
Conclusion 1 Acknowledgements: We wish to thank the With this first use case we were able Editors of the International Journal for Digital to apply principles and concepts from Art History for the invitation to present our case study. We would like to acknowledge the visualisation research and interface German Federal Ministry of Education and design to a digitized art historical Research (BMBF) for their generous funding source and illustrated the potential of of our research project VIKUS–Visualising visualizations when implemented in an Cultural Collections. We thank our project art historical context. The concept and partners SPSG and Programmfabrik GmbH for the productive cooperation. We wish to functionalities were developed in an thank Matthias Graf for his work on a previous interdisciplinary co-creation process, version of the visualization and Dr. Jörg Meiner thus ensuring the result to be well for his scientific consulting. We are grateful
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for valuable ideas, continuous feedback, and Preußen (1795-1861) zum 150. Todestag« was support from our colleagues Sebastian Meier, open to the public from 7 May until 31 July, Till Nagel, Stephanie Neumann und Jan-Erik 2011 and was accompanied by an exhibition Stange. catalogue. 2 Herbartische Reliquien, ein Supplement 9 The digital copies, metadata, and texts used zu Herbart’s Sämmtlichen Werken, eds. v. in the visualization were created by Dr. Jörg [Tuiskon] Ziller, Leipzig 1871, p. 201. Cited after Meiner (project lead), Dr. Catharina Hasenclever »Unglaublich ist sein Genie fürs Zeichnen« (project lead 2006-2008), Antje Adler, Astrid Friedrich Wilhelm IV. von Preußen (1795-1861) Fritsche, Klaus Dorst, Stefan Gehlen, Dr. zum 150. Todestag, published on behalf of the Gabriele Horn, Dr. Andreas Meinecke, Dr. Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Gerd-H. Zuchold, Dr. Rolf H. Johannsen, Prof. Berlin-Brandenburg by Jörg Meiner 2011, 8. Dr. Harry Falk, Dr. Rolf Th. Senn and Dr. Sepp- (Translation by the authors) Gustav Gröschel. Editor: Dr. Carsten Dilba. 3 cf. ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums, 2013 10 »Unglaublich ist sein Genie fürs Zeichnen« 4 For a description of the framework for such Friedrich Wilhelm IV. von Preußen (1795-1861) a participatory workshop with collection main zum 150. Todestag, published on behalf of the tainers and contributors cf. Chen, K., Dork, Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation M., & Dade-Robertson, M. (2014). Exploring Berlin-Brandenburg by Jörg Meiner (2011) the Promises and Potentials of Visual Archive 11 Bederson, B. and Hollan, J. (1994). Pad++: Interfaces. In iConference 2014 Proceedings ( a zooming graphical interface for exploring 735–741). doi:10.9776/14348 alternate interface physics. In UIST 1994: 5 see e.g. the visualization of metadata of the Symposium on User Interface Software and DDB that provides experimental overviews of Technology, 17–26. ACM. the temporal and spatial distribution of objects 12 Hochman, N. and Manovich, L. (2013). and the associated topics, people, and orga Zooming into an instagram city: Reading the nizations, using the metadata of more than 7 local through social media. First Monday, 18(7). million cultural heritage objects aggregated by 13 Manovich, L. (2015). Data science and digital the German Digital Library (DDB) Bernhardt art history. International Journal for Digital Art et al (2014).: http://infovis.fh-potsdam.de/ddb/ History, (1): 13–35. index_en.html. 14 cf. eg. Antonides et al. “Consumer 6 Johanna Drucker, “Is There a “Digital” Art Perception and Evaluation of Waiting Time: History?” In: Visual Resources: An International A Field Experiment”. In: Journal of Consumer Journal of Documentation, Vol. 29, No. 1-2 Psychology, 12(3) (2001); Egger et al. “Waiting (2013), 7. times in quality of experience for web based 7 Benjamin Zweig, “Forgotten Genealogies: services”, QoMEX, IEEE (2012) Brief Reflections on the History of Digital Art 15 cf. Myers “The importance of percent- History.” In: International Journal for Digital Art done progress indicators for computer-human History, Issue 1 (2015), 39. interfaces”. Presented at the Computer Human 8 The exhibition »Friedrich Wilhelm IV. von Interactions, Vol. 16, ACM (1985) Bibliography
Antonides, G., Verhoef, P. C., & van Aalst, M. “Consumer Perception and Evaluation of Waiting Time: A Field Experiment”. In: Journal of Consumer Psychology, 12(3) (2001), 193–202. doi:10.1207/S15327663JCP1203_02 Bederson, B. and Hollan, J. “Pad++: a zooming graphical interface for exploring alternate interface physics.” In: UIST 1994: Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. ACM (1994), 17–26.
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Bernhardt, C., Credico, G., Pietsch, C., Dork, M. Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek visualisiert, http://infovis.fh-potsdam.de/ddb/ (2014) (accessed March 3, 2016). Chen, K., Dork, M., & Dade-Robertson, M. “Exploring the Promises and Potentials of Visual Archive Interfaces”. In: iConference 2014 Proceedings. doi:10.9776/14348 (2014), 735–741. Drucker, Johanna. “Is There a “Digital” Art History?” In: Visual Resources: An International Journal of Documentation 29, No. 1-2 (2013), 5–13. Egger, S., Hossfeld, T., Schatz, R., & Fiedler, M. “Waiting times in quality of experience for web based services”. Presented at the 2012 Fourth International Workshop on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX), IEEE (2012), 86–96. doi:10.1109/ QoMEX.2012.6263888 Hochman, N. and Manovich, L. “Zooming into an instagram city: Reading the local through social media”. In: First Monday, 18(7) (2013). Manovich, L. “Data science and digital art history”. In: International Journal for Digital Art History, Issue 1 (2015),13–35. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11588/dah.2015.1.21631 Meiner, Jörg (ed. on behalf of the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin- Brandenburg). »Unglaublich ist sein Genie fürs Zeichnen« Friedrich Wilhelm IV. von Preußen (1795-1861) zum 150. Todestag. Potsdam, 2011. Myers, B. A. “The importance of percent-done progress indicators for computer- human interfaces”. Presented at the Computer Human Interactions, Vol. 16, ACM (1985), 11–17. doi:10.1145/1165385.317459 Ziller, T. (ed.). Herbartische Reliquien: Ein Supplement zu Herbart’s Sämmtlichen Werken. Leipzig, 1871 Zweig, Benjamin. “Forgotten Genealogies: Brief Reflections on the History of Digital Art History.” In: International Journal for Digital Art History, Issue 1 (2015), 38–49. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11588/dah.2015.1.21633
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Watch video on the web: https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_ video/704682608718958592/pu/vid/1164x720/cJFHbu586dC3lWAt.mp4
The research project »VIKUS - Visualizing Cultural Collections« (Visua li sierung kultureller Sammlungen, 2014 - 2017) brings together researchers from various fields such as information visualization, computer science, interface design, and the humanities to develop and evaluate graphical interfaces aimed at enabling interactive examination of cultural objects. The project liaises closely with cultural institutions (e.g., museums, libraries and foundations) as well as with developers of media databases. The VIKUS team approaches the area of digital cultural heritage by combining technological possibilities with cultural considerations in order to develop visualizations and interfaces that open up interesting and useful perspectives on digitized collections. Thereby, novel interaction techniques and representations are designed and evaluated for their suitability for different scenarios. More information about the Urban Complexity Lab: uclab.fh-potsdam.de
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Katrin Glinka is a research associate and lecturer at the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences. She combines approaches from art history, sociology and museum studies with an interest in digital cultural heritage and visualization research. She studied cultural sciences with a focus on art theory, visual culture, sociology and philosophy and holds an M. A. degree from Leuphana University Lüneburg. Since 2014 she has been working on her doctoral thesis on digitization and visualization in the cultural field and their means and potentials for curation, critical and interventionist approaches and visitor orientation in museums. Correspondence e-mail: [email protected]
Christopher Pietsch is a Berlin-based interaction designer. His passion for interfaces goes beyond the digital layer as he tries to connect the physical with the digital world. He studied computer science at the HTW Berlin and interaction design at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam and holds a bachelor’s degree for his thesis on brain-computer-interfaces. As a freelance information and interaction designer he now explores novel types of visualization metaphors (www.chrispie.com). Correspondence e-mail: [email protected]
Carsten Dilba, Ph. D., is scientific editor at the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg, responsible for both printed an online publications. He studied at the Universities of Bonn, Leicester, Vienna and the University College London, subsequently working for the Fraunhofer IAIS (netzspannung.org). He published on mediaeval and 18th century art history. Correspondence e-mail: [email protected]
Marian Dörk is a research professor for Information Visualization at the Institute for Urban Futures of the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences. During his PhD at University of Calgary and his postdoctorate at Newcastle University he designed and studied novel visualization techniques in particular with regard to their potential for exploratory information practices. He leads a 3-year research project on visualizing cultural collections (VIKUS) and since January 2015 he has been co-directing the Urban Complexity Lab, a research space at the intersection between information visualization and urban transformation. Correspondence e-mail: [email protected]
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