Cultural objects : an inquiry into embedded stories Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MS by Research in Exact Humanities by Priyanka Suresh 201256152 [email protected] Center for Exact Humanities November 2017 Copyright c Priyanka Suresh, 2017 All Rights Reserved International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad, India CERTIFICATE It is certified that the work contained in this thesis, titled “Cultural objects : an inquiry into embedded stories” by Priyanka Suresh, has been carried out under my supervision and is not submitted elsewhere for a degree. Date Adviser: Prof. Navjyoti Singh To my family Acknowledgments This research would not be possible without the inputs of many people. I would like to thank Prof. Navjyoti Singh, for his constant guidance and support. I am very grateful for his patience and wisdom, and for motivating me to think differently and doing my best. I wish to thank Dr. Jeffrey Schnapp and my colleagues at metaLAB (at) Harvard for their encouragement, innovative ideas and friendship. My learning experience there was invaluable. I would also like to thank my parents for their unwavering faith, love and affection. A big hug to all my friends for keeping me sane and the wonderful memories. v Abstract Cultural objects are highly interpretive and complex in nature. Though technological advancements have made it possible to digitize and preserve knowledge of cultural value, capturing details of such objects in-situ has rarely been explored. In this thesis, we develop a platform called Curarium for in- depth exploration of cultural collections, within and outside a museum setting. A focus group of 17 researchers gathered cultural collections on a trip to Odisha. The collections contain information pertaining to Pattachitra paintings, Gotipua performances, sustainable crafts, mu- seum objects and processions. The data-sets are unique in nature and content, as they provide for an interplay between different kinds of objects. In this thesis, we examine the cultural value in objects unexplored before - like processions, and what they comprise. To accommodate the different kinds of data, we develop a meta-data structure that would encapsulate all the relevant information. We import the curated data collection into Curarium and utilize the various in-house tools to discover patterns, create annotations, collaborate and visualize the data. Curarium provides a novel approach in delving deep into a cultural object. However, we recognize a gap in cross-referencing objects within its natural environment. In lieu of this, the thesis proposes developing narratives about cultural objects as an approach to capturing information. We develop a platform to generate narratives based on the digital surrogates. We conduct a user study with the focus group to develop narratives on the aforementioned data-sets on a platform called Narratavium. On fur- ther research, we recognize these narratives to be of three types - within-object, within-collection, and user generated thematic narratives. Upon recognizing plots within art objects and identifying themes, we account for the human experience in interacting with these cultural objects in their natural environ- ment. This narrows the removed appreciation of the culture by the audience. In this thesis, we utilize sequential art methods to study Pattachitra paintings, Aristotlean narrative theories to study processions and performances, and qualitative analysis to generate themes. By visualizing the narrative information, we gain insights into nuances of the objects and the collections as a whole. We use charts and clusters to extract popular themes in a collection. We develop methods to identify conflict points in a narrative and understand transitions in a story plot. We also study information retention in the process of re-narration, and relevant objects in a collection through frequently told narratives. vi Contents Chapter Page 1 Introduction :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 1 1.1 Classification of Cultural Data . 2 1.2 Narrative visualizations . 3 1.3 Outline . 4 2 Curarium :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 5 2.1 Development methodologies . 5 2.2 Technical standards for Digital objects . 6 2.3 Software architecture and design . 6 2.4 Database management . 7 2.5 Functional overview . 7 2.5.1 Collection Management . 8 2.5.1.1 Interacting with collections . 8 2.5.1.2 Importing collections . 8 2.5.2 Information Development . 10 2.5.2.1 Meta-data additions . 10 2.5.2.2 Annotations . 11 2.5.2.3 Spotlights . 12 2.5.3 User Management . 13 2.5.3.1 Circles . 14 2.5.3.2 Trays . 14 2.5.4 Visualizations . 15 2.5.4.1 Object map . 16 2.5.4.2 List view . 17 2.5.4.3 Thumbnails . 18 2.5.4.4 Treemaps . 19 2.5.4.5 Color Maps: . 20 3 Data Preparation :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 22 3.1 Curation . 22 3.1.1 Kinds of data . 22 3.1.2 Establishing meta-data structure . 23 3.1.3 Exceptions . 25 3.2 Importing into Curarium . 26 3.2.1 Experiments with data-sets . 26 vii viii CONTENTS 3.2.1.1 Record . 26 3.2.1.2 Annotations . 27 3.2.1.3 Treemap . 28 3.2.1.4 Colormap . 29 3.2.1.5 Trays . 30 3.3 Results . 31 4 Narrativium :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 33 4.1 Motivation for Narratives . 33 4.2 Functional aspects of Narrativium . 34 4.2.1 Platform development . 34 4.2.2 Creating Narratives . 35 4.2.3 Importing narratives . 35 4.2.4 Interaction with narratives . 36 4.2.4.1 Editing . 36 4.2.4.2 Forums . 37 4.2.4.3 Annotations . 38 4.3 Results and Analysis . 39 4.3.1 Within the object . 40 4.3.1.1 Pattachitra using sequential-art concepts . 40 4.3.2 Within the collection . 45 4.3.2.1 Analyzing Gotipua using micro and macro structures . 45 4.3.2.2 Analyzing processions using Aristotlean Theory of drama . 48 4.3.3 Thematic narratives . 49 4.3.3.1 Qualities in thematic narratives . 49 4.3.3.2 Identifying themes . 51 5 Visualizations ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 53 5.1 For within-object narratives . 54 5.1.1 Identifying conflict points studying character co-occurrence . 54 5.1.1.1 Design choice . 54 5.1.1.2 Analysis . 55 5.1.2 Analysing transitions . 56 5.1.2.1 Design choice . 56 5.1.2.2 Analysis . 56 5.2 For within-collection narratives . 57 5.2.1 Using narrative graphs . 57 5.2.1.1 Design choice . 58 5.2.1.2 Analysis . 58 5.2.2 Information retention through narrative grammar . 60 5.2.2.1 Design choice . 61 5.2.2.2 Analysis . 62 5.3 For thematic narratives . 62 5.3.1 Popularity of themes . 62 5.3.1.1 Design choice . 63 5.3.1.2 Analysis . 64 CONTENTS ix 5.3.2 Geoclustering . 64 5.3.2.1 Design choice . 64 5.3.2.2 Analysis . 65 6 Conclusions :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 66 6.1 Research and contributions . 66 6.2 Future work . 67 Bibliography :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 69 List of Figures Figure Page 2.1 Database diagram of Curarium . 7 2.2 Importing a collection into Curarium - 1 . 9 2.3 Importing a collection into Curarium - 2 . 10 2.4 Display of meta-data fields in a record . 11 2.5 Display of annotations in a record . 12 2.6 Creation of Spotlights in Curarium . 13 2.7 Display of Circles in Curarium . 14 2.8 Display of Trays in Curarium . 15 2.9 Visualization tool-kit in Curarium . 16 2.10.