Evolving Models
Beyond Learning - Exploring the Immersive Installation's Additional Experience for Visitors : Case Study of Dreamscape in the Hong Kong Palace Museum View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Shengwei Chen, Jeffrey Shaw, Runqi Zou
Creating valuable knowledge and promoting cultural dissemination for audiences have become one of the most important responsibilities of contemporary museums. The appearance of immersive devices enhances the audience's interest in visiting and deepens the audience's visit memory, thereby promoting a rich learning experience for the audience. While gaining knowledge and relaxation is the most widespread audience reflection on an immersive installation-mediated museum experience, this does not mean that the value of immersive installations is limited to creating a learning experience for visitors. Therefore, this study explores two questions: What additional experiences can immersive installations provide visitors? Are these additional experiences positive or negative for the audience? In addition, this research takes the Dreamscape installation in the HKPM as a case and adopts the observation and interviews method to collect the visiting data of 32 audiences with different backgrounds. This study found that multicultural and memorable experiences were the most common reflections except for learning experiences. More importantly, there are many differences in the interpretation and perception of multiculturalism and memorable experience among different groups, which result from individuals' backgrounds. Furthermore, this study also found visitors construct a similar experience based on the subtle design of immersive installations during the pandemic. Finally, this research argues that although providing audiences with a valuable learning experience remains the core function of museums, but immersive installations create more rich experiences for visitors and mediate the visiting needs of different groups from various aspects.
Model of Public Arts Support under Public Value Management: Case Study of Australia View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Dorcas Yeung
This study examines how model of public support for arts in Australia is impacted by changes of political landscape and public administration model. Influenced by the British tradition, the Australia arts support system displays an early track of patron model, upholding the arm’s length principle and support for excellence and professional standards. The study examines strategic plans and grant programme documents of federal and state arts funding bodies, as well as the newly announced National Cultural Policy in Australia, in order to capture how arts funding model is shaped and evolved. Findings suggest the patron model in Australia is still in place on principle, but in practice, the approach has evolved to show features of the architect model, with arts and culture as instrument for social and national objectives. The granting system is now characterized with heavy presence of funders’ priorities despite the presence of arm’s length assessment. The changing model could be explained by shifting political landscape and influence of Public Value Management (PVM) as public administration approach. PVM has gained popularities in the Australia since 2000s. Through the arts support process, public managers and arts companies are expected to generate value to the public. The study bridges the gap between public administration model and arts funding policy and practices with relevance to post-COVID societal and political changes.
AI, NFTs, and the Metaverse: Adapting Copyright to the 21st Century View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Dawn Larsen
This paper examines how copyright law can be reinterpreted to allow for the way information is shared in the 21st century, not by changing the written law, but by changing the way courts interpret and apply it. The internet and social media have changed not only how information is shared, but also how knowledge is acquired. Our society has progressed beyond read/write, and communication is now multi-modal. Moreover, AI, NFTs, and the metaverse present a whole new, complex set of copyright questions for the courts, as well as creators, as the law has not kept pace with technological change. This paper examines current interpretations of copyright infringement and fair use, how these interpretations benefit and disadvantage creators, and how the law might adapt to allow for greater creativity as technology advances.
Models are More than Objects: They Allude to Action View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Michelle Gay, Barbara Rauch
We are looking for new ontological, ethical, and epistemological entanglements through practice and theory. Models become a way of pointing to futures including critical, utopic, feminist, decolonial, and ethical futures. This practice-led research began with the ‘container gallery’, a scale 1:1 recreation of an actual gallery. The ‘container gallery’ was our guide and anchor as we passed through various categorizations of models. Our preliminary literature review uses the Artistic Model (miniature, maquette, recreation), Surveillance Models (military, panoptic, scientific), Educational Models (toys, data visualization, exemplary), Convenience/Status Models (prefab, souvenir) and Temporal Models (past, future & the alternate now). We consider models as conceptual “machines" to explore theoretical, material, poetic and political aspects and tease out areas of intersection and creative resonance. Our theorizing goes beyond any particular model, this is to be inclusive and cross disciplinary. We can easily transport physical objects into a digital point cloud to further complicate the concept - where the “model” then enters current dialogues about the virtual, the digital as material and as spatial. We see the model (as simultaneously object and action) as a framework for both making theory and practicing theory. This paper discusses the model as a generative prompting space. The abstract model will help us generate and imagine new models of sociality, spatiality, and new futures by allowing playfulness and a generative production of the unmaking of existing paradigms.
Vision for a Decentralised Model of the ‘Art World’: Grassroots Art Ventures in South-West England View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ruth Smith
I was struck on leaving art school that everyone seemed to be asking ‘how do I get "in" to the art world’. Baffled by this notion of scarcity of attention, I set myself to establishing arts projects that generated interest and resulted in inspiring relationships that sparked new collaborations, first in London, then in rural South-West England. It left me questioning the scramble to be noticed by a very particular and centralised few, over innovation in creating more space for engagement through the arts. Exposure, celebrity, and influence have long underpinned many of our societal structures, which includes issues surrounding ‘seen’ and ‘unseen’ art ventures and the dynamics of urban and rural creative communities, where the complicated politics of the convenience of centralisation leads to the dominant exposure of art in urban locations. The issue of ‘us and them’ in the context of a centre that one is either ‘in’ or ‘out’, leads further to debate around ideas of the social function of art through ‘public engagement’. Who is ‘the public’? Is this another phrase for ‘the powerless’ or ‘oblivious’ or ‘unenlightened’? Has the ‘non-public’ had the say for long enough on what is worth listening to or looking at? If art is for all, for freedom of expression and openness of debate, then in this era of grassroots movements and reminders of the importance and fragility of democracy, perhaps the time is for these rules to be rewritten.
Dream-inspired Art : Comparing Human and AI Approaches View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Yasuhito Nakasato
This study documents my dreams for two months, with the goal of uncovering how dreams are stored in my brain and gaining insight into the unconscious processes that leads to their creation. In exploring the relationship between dreams and art, I seek to understand the creative potential of dream-inspired art. I create art inspired by my dreams using Adobe Photoshop and Dall-E, an artificial intelligence tool. By comparing the aesthetic qualities of my digital art with that generated by Dall-E, I hope to gain insights into the potential for AI in the creative process. The study's initial findings suggest that my dreams may offer unique insights into the nature of the unconscious mind, and that dream-inspired art has the potential to be both deeply personal and universal. This study has broader implications for our understanding of the creative process, the role of the unconscious in art, and the relationship between humans and AI. Future research could further explore the potential for dream-inspired art and the role of AI in the creative process.
