Sanctuary, Saint Thomas' Episcopal Church, Camden, Maine

Located in downtown Camden, Maine, St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church has resided in its current building since 1924. The structure, which seats approximately 160 parishioners in its sanctuary, was built in an English Gothic style designed by architect, E. Leander Higgins of Portland. The church building has many distinctive features including: intricate carvings by Laudi Lang of Oberammergau, Germany; stained glass windows fabricated by the English firm Heaton, Butler and Bayne, Ltd. under the direction of Father Ralph Hayden; and needlepoint kneelers thoughtfully made by members of the Church.

Chapel, Saint Thomas' Episcopal Church, Camden, Maine

Click here to view the Sanctuary of Saint Thomas’ Episcopal Church.

Click here to view the Chapel of Saint Thomas’ Episcopal Church.

Panoramas created by Seth Thompson.

Snapshot of the Sistine Chapel Panorama

Villanova University faculty and students from the school’s communication and computer science departments collaborated with the Vatican to make important architectural heritage sites more accessible to the online community.

This virtual reality tour project, which features stunning 360-degree panoramas of the Sistine Chapel, Basilica of St. Peter, Pauline Chapel, Basilica of Saint Paul, Basilica of Saint John Lateran, and Saint Mary Major is part of an internship program that Villanova University established with the Vatican in 2003.

“The artwork present in places of worship aims to immerse the visitor in a sacred reality and the Sistine Chapel is preeminent in this tradition,” said Frank Klassner, an Associate Professor in Villanova’s Computing Sciences Department and a leader on the project. “Our team is grateful to have played a small part in maintaining this tradition using the power of the Internet and modern immersive technology.”

The project, which was completed in 2010, is an excellent example of how a university and cultural institution can work together to create innovative solutions that address the needs and abilities of its partnering organizations.

For more information, read:
http://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/media/pressreleases/2010/0806.html

http://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/media/pressreleases/2010/0319.html

The Web is critical not merely to the digital revolution but to our continued prosperity—and even our liberty. Like democracy itself, it needs defending.

Scientific American

The world wide web went live, on my physical desktop in Geneva, Switzerland, in December 1990. It consisted of one Web site and one browser, which happened to be on the same computer. The simple setup demonstrated a profound concept: that any person could share information with anyone else, anywhere. In this spirit, the Web spread quickly from the grassroots up. Today, at its 20th anniversary, the Web is thoroughly integrated into our daily lives. We take it for granted, expecting it to “be there” at any instant, like electricity.”

The Web evolved into a powerful, ubiquitous tool because it was built on egalitarian principles and because thousands of individuals, universities and companies have worked, both independently and together as part of the World Wide Web Consortium, to expand its capabilities based on those principles….>>Click here to read more.

The “digital humanities” is not only the new frontier for academics and researchers but also for museum professionals and designers who seek to push the boundaries with digital technologies to create online exhibitions and construct virtual museums.

As museum professionals and researchers grapple with how they may document, collect and disseminate intangible cultural heritage, which the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage defined to include: “ (a) oral traditions and expressions, including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage; (b) performing arts; (c) social practices, rituals and festive events; (d) knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe; (e) traditional craftsmanship,” a reexamination of how heritage and cultural artifacts are cataloged, represented and interpreted within a museum context needs to be carefully considered and a virtual environment may be the most appropriate place to disseminate them.

By using digital technologies to document and create records of a museum’s intangible and tangible cultural heritage assets as well as related contextual information, a museum can create a database system and interface to sift and sort through its digital assets to create meaning and understanding in ways that would have been very difficult to achieve earlier. Nevertheless the following questions need to be considered: 1.) Does a new or revised cataloging system need to be employed? 2.) How can a tagging system be better developed and defined to benefit museum staff, researchers, teachers and lifelong learners?

Courtyard at Jazirat Al Hamra, Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates

Jazirat Al Hamra, a former coastal village in southern Ras Al Khaimah that was abandoned prior to the formation of the United Arab Emirates, is considered one of the last traditional towns in the country. Once an active fishing and pearl diving community primarily inhabited by the the Al Zaabi tribe, Jazirat Al Hamra consists of a hisn, several mosques, a souq and over a 100 houses including a wind tower home—many of which are constructed of coral, shell stone and plaster.

As the buildings continue to decay due to a dire lack of attention, not only does the architecture need to be documented and mapped, but also the stories and traditions of the people who once lived there needs to be recorded. Creating a virtual museum, which documents both the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of Jazirat Al Hamra enables a record of the past for future generations.

Click here to view a 360 degree panorama of a courtyard at Jazirat Al Hamra.

Adobe Museum of Digital Media

On October 6, 2010, two months after its anticipated release, Adobe launched the Adobe Museum of Digital Media, an online exhibition space for art and design. While providing enticing architectural graphics, the site is disappointing because it does not embrace current museum and Web 2.0 thought on developing participatory experiences to create dialogue and engage community. As a result, the Adobe Museum of Digital Media fails to grasp the potential of the Web by using a traditional authoritative exhibition model within a digital environment. Besides decreasing the download time to experience the museum interface and work at hand, my advice to Adobe is to let go of the notion of a physical architecture within the interface design and provide a more visceral experience for viewers to engage in and interact with intangible works of art that are made specifically for the screen.

Read the Adobe Museum of Digital Media press release.

Rendering of Abu Dhabi's proposed Saadiyat Island Cultural District

Capitalizing on the successes of other cities that have employed star architects to design trophy museum buildings, Abu Dhabi appears to have embarked on a similar initiative to jump-start cultural tourism with its Saadiyat Island Cultural District. This initiative has commissioned such notable architects as Frank Gehry and Jean Nouvel to create memorable buildings that will further entice visitors to see the quality exhibitions that the Guggenheim and Louvre brands have been known to deliver. Although initiatives like this were conceived and implemented to develop or improve local economies around the turn of this century, conceptually the architecture of the museum appears to be changing—causing a notable paradigm shift from that of a storehouse or temple of objects to that of a visitor-centered educational repository of objects and information (Schweibenz, 1998).

This shift is evident in such books as Eilean Hooper-Greenhill’s Museums and the Interpretation of Visual Culture and Gail Anderson’s Reinventing the Museum: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on the Paradigm Shift. This change was not an overnight occurence, but rather a long thoughtful process that took place over the 20th century and has lead to new ideas for museums in the 21st century (Anderson, 2004). While many of the essays in Anderson’s book exhibit the shift from being a collection-driven institution to a visitor centered one, it is Hooper-Greenhill’s book that leads to ideas for the future of the museum, especially when it entails the use of computer technology in order for the museum to “play the role of partner, colleague, learner (itself), and service provider” (Hooper-Greenhill, 2000). In her book, she proclaims that, “the production of events and exhibitions as conjoint dynamic processes enables the incorporation into the museum of many voices and many perspectives. Knowledge is no longer unified and monolithic; it becomes fragmented and multi-vocal. There is no necessary unified perspective—rather a cacophony of voices may be heard that present a range of views, experiences and values” (Hooper-Greenhill, 2000).

The introduction of digital media and the Internet in the early 1990s into the mainstream cultural landscape prompted new considerations and opportunities for museums to develop and engage with audiences using novel forms of didactic experiences. During this time, both museums and media encountered a paradigm shift in which the notions of accessibility and participation expanded their definitions respectively. Using digital media and, more specifically, Web 2.0 technologies, the museum may not only enhance its ability to act as a mediator between object and audience— allowing for visitors or users to learn, question and engage in ways that have not been possible before— but it can also potentially change the notion of the museum from an authoritative power to an inclusive voice—where memory may no longer be singular but rather collective.

For example, The “Make History” Web project (makehistory.national911memorial.org), an initiative of the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum is a model case of how individuals may create a collective memory of a time, place or event using Web 2.0 technologies. Users of the site have the ability to upload images, videos and personal stories to the site as well as search for different media, locations and topics through its database. Jake Barton of Local Projects LLC who developed the site for the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum states, “Make History allows the history of 9/11 to be spoken from the voice of those who experienced it. We know that there were vigils in Tehran, London, Berlin, Japan and this is our way to reach out and make contact with anyone who has images or stories about experiencing 9/11 around the world. This is an effort to invite the world to understand history from the perspective of those who witnessed it.” (National 9/11 Memorial and Museum, 2009)

The “Make History” Web project, an initiative of the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum

In a sense, a virtual museum can become a majlis or meeting place where people can share, learn and remember.  With a museum’s digital assets such as images, video, audio and text, museum media design that employs Web 2.0 and social media technologies—while still being invested in the more authoritative Web 1.0 model as “publisher”— potentially allows the museum to assume multiple roles as authority, partner and learner in regard to the assembling, dissemination and interpretation of knowledge.

Over the past four decades the United Arab Emirates has embarked on a transformation that has substantially changed its cultural landscape. From a predominately Bedouin culture in which people lived in both ephemeral structures as well as more modest permanent ones to a landscape of skyscrapers and grand buildings, the UAE’s investment in its new infrastructure reconfirms its ambitious plans for itself. This transformation has placed an emphasis on the preservation of past material culture and the creation of a new identity for the UAE through its endeavor to acquire a global contemporary architecture, which is especially evident in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.  However, the predominate wealth of the UAE’s culture does not necessarily reside in its material artifacts, but rather lies in its rich intangible cultural heritage such as storytelling, dance, poetry and rituals, which needs to be also preserved. In addition, the shared stories of both the past and present local and ex-pat communities in the forms of text, image, and sound, potentially allows for a collective memory in which a more rich and complex story may be told of the Emirates.

Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan once stated, “He who does not know his past cannot make the best of his present and future, for it is from the past that we learn.” (UAEInteract, 2005)  It is through the preservation of both the tangible and intangible that potentially creates a richer understanding of the past. A virtual architecture may allow for both the local and international community to learn, engage, share and enjoy in a rich cultural past that cannot necessarily be understood in purely physical terms.

Eilean Hooper-Greenhill writes, “Where the modernist museum was (and is) imagined as a building, the museum in the future may be imagined as a process or an experience. The post-museum will take, and is already beginning to take, many architectural forms. It is, however, not limited to its own walls, but moves as a set of process into the spaces, the concerns and the ambitions of communities…[T]he post-museum will negotiate responsiveness, encourage mutually nurturing partnerships, and celebrate diversity” (Hooper-Greenhill 2000, 153). With this in mind, the Gulf region may be the breeding ground for the new museum that reconsiders both the physical and the intangible—challenging the material nature of the museum with the intangible, and a virtual or digital architecture may be the most appropriate space for this genesis.

NOTES

Anderson, Gail, ed. (2004). Reinventing the Museum: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on the Paradigm Shift. Lanham, Maryland: AltaMira Press.

Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean. (2000). Museums and the Interpretation of Visual Culture. New York, New York: Routledge.

National September 11 Memorial & Museum. (2009 September 10) Public Invited to “Make History” Through National 9/11 Memorial and Museum Initiative. New York: National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Retrieved February 21, 2010 from http://www.national911memorial.org/site/DocServer/Makehistorycameraplanet_final.pdf?docID=7021.

Schweibenz, Werner. (1998). The “Virtual Museum”: New Perspectives For Museums to Present Objects and Information Using the Internet as a Knowledge Base and Communication System. Retrieved on November 6, 2009 from http://is.uni-sb.de/projekte/sonstige/museum/virtual_museum_isi98.

Thompson, Seth. (2009). Redefining the Notion of the Museum in the Digital Age: Web 2.0 Technologies and Contemporary Museum Theory. The International Journal for the Arts in Society. Champaign, Illinois: Common Grounds Publishing LLC.

UAEInteract (2005 February 11). Sheikh Zayed in quotes. Retrieved on March 4, 2010 from http://www.uaeinteract.com/docs/Sheikh_Zayed_in_quotes/18411.htm.

Research for this article was supported in part by a Faculty Research Grant from the American University of Sharjah.