Browsing by Subject "Museum studies"

Increased consumption of virtual museum content today has fueled the development of new ways of improving the ‘museum experience.’ The sophisticated needs and expectations of the modern visitor in the pursuit of education, leisure, and adventure within museums, can be fulfilled through the application of modern-day solutions. The objective of this study is to improve the experience of paintings through providing audiences three-dimensional immersive virtual experiences. In order to achieve this goal, a case study was created to explore in depth the idea that three-dimensional interventions with interactive elements will improve experience and enhance museum engagement. A practice-based methodology was used to develop a three-dimensional virtual environment of the painting of The Goddess of the Luo by Gu Kazhi. The expertise and knowledge of the researcher concerning photo-editing software and three-dimensional game engine were instrumental in the design and implementation of the virtual environment. The results indicated that through the combination of two-dimensional and three-dimensional elements, the design of instrumental interaction and interpretive materials based on the original painting, various techniques and strategies could be applied to improve the experience of the three-dimensional animated painting. The approach described in this case study could be applied to the physical museums as a supplement to interpret the original painting, as well as being displayed on the official website of the museums.

Before the rise of the ubiquitous MOCA (museum of contemporary) there was the Musée national du Luxembourg that since its foundation in 1818, served as the first museum anywhere dedicated to contemporary art. Yet the Luxembourg has been left to lurk in the shadows of art history. Best remembered for its mismanagement of the Caillebotte Bequest (1894-1897) that left the French state as the beneficiary of several dozen Impressionist canvases, the Luxembourg has been dismissed as epitomizing official support for an exhausted academicism.

This dissertation has sought to correct these misconceptions of the museum and the Third Republic Fine Arts administration. It provides an institutional history of the museum under the early Third Republic (1871-1914) that reconsiders how different interpretations of republicanism informed its curators' policies and practices. Information culled from archives, official publications, art criticism, and even tourist brochures, has revealed that in the 1890s and especially the 1900s, the museum's curators embraced the politics of solidarism. Applying solidarist principles such as eclecticism, tolerance, and commitment to public education, its curators defended their acquisition of both avant-garde and academic works of art. These principles further spurred curators to trace the spectrum of contemporary painterly styles to French artist tradition. In so doing, the Luxembourg's administrators implicitly upheld republicanism as a characteristically, even classically, French ideology that, in its translation into paint and institutional policies, testified to the nation's continued cultural, artistic, and political supremacy.

This thesis explores the way digital technologies inflect experiences with and meanings of art historical objects. Specifically, it addresses the way digital technologies can change the archiving, exhibiting, and experience of ephemeral art. It does so by 1) providing a discussion of archival theory, museum practices, and the use of photography as a primary means of archiving ephemeral art, and by 2) creating three digital visualizations that focus on the same problematic but leverage different technologies: Palladio, Neatline, and Unity 3d, respectively. These archival exhibits highlight spatial, temporal, and relational details that are often lost in the photographic documentation of ephemeral art. Alone, the archives highlight specific aspects of ephemera, but collectively in the exhibit, a more comprehensive record of ephemera is achieved. This emphasizes digital technologies ability to create widely accessible archives, educational resources, and different archival processes that add meaning to the records.

Decoding Artifacts is a project that explores the ways in which technologies and interactive media enhance the museum visitor’s learning experience with art. The digital components of the project include a website and a mobile application, both hosting historical content, educational videos, images, 3D models, and an augmented reality experience. These virtual tools offer information to the viewer beyond the museum label, and aim to create a multi-sensory learning environment through an interactive dialogue between the public and the work of art. The thesis paper discusses how and why art museums are adapting to modern technological trends and the affordances of digital tools in museum education and outreach. The Decoding Artifacts project will use the example of medieval sculpture and the process of stone carving as case studies which discuss and demonstrate the effectiveness of virtual technologies in museum experiences.

This thesis examines colonial exhibitions as imperial propaganda tools in Taiwan, particularly the 1935 exhibition The Taiwan Exposition under Japanese rule, and compares it with fascist Italy's 1940 Mostra d’Oltremare and Korea's 1929 Chosun Exposition. Among the research on Taiwan's history during the Japanese colonial period, this study delves into a nuanced analysis of how Japan, aspiring to match Western imperial powers, adopted and adapted the concept of exhibitions to compete with the West and to project its imperial ambitions. It contextualizes Japan's engagement with museum and exhibition culture as part of its broader modernization and imperial agenda. By delving into the exhibitions' function in manifesting the regimes’ ambitions through carefully curated displays, artwork, and spatial designs, the analysis underscores The Taiwan Exposition as not merely strategic embodiments of political power and ideology but also as cultural spectacles designed to engender a colonial fascination. This approach subtly packages and presents these exhibitions in a way that ideologically shapes colonial subjects, molding their perceptions through the awe-inspiring experiences they offer, thereby spotlighting The Taiwanese Exposition's pivotal role in this intricate process. By juxtaposing The Taiwan Exposition with its counterparts, the study seeks to unravel the layered expressions of colonialism, nationalism, and cultural exchange, offering insights into the WWII colonial discourse.

The archivolt of Alife being exhibited as a part of the Brummer Collect in the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University is an enigmatic artifact with many unknown elements. Specifically, the iconography, one of the aspects of the archivolt that has not been explored by many scholars, has several possible interpretations to each of the animals depicted. Despite the amount of information that can be presented as interesting knowledge, scholarly discourse and research involving an artifact is generally not presented to the public due to the complexity of the information. Therefore, by using augmented reality and object recognition technology, this thesis aims to present the multiple iconographic theories regarding the key animals on the archivolt of Alife in a dynamic manner, giving users insight on how to view the iconography by making scholarly information more accessible. The digital component of this thesis uses the newest object recognition algorithm provided by ARKit to build an interactive app that allows the viewers to see “info cards” directly overlaid on top of the iconography. Although the current state of AR technology still has limitations regarding buildability and malleability, the usable prototype of this application was successfully produced and is subject to future expansions and experiments.