3.3 Primera fase: Resolución del problema de lápiz y papel
3.3.3 Procesamiento de los datos
Throughout the past year we have started to become involved with 3D fabrication as part of the digGLAM project. In this project, in addition to the “Haloo Akseli” archive, we have sought to develop a robot assistant to work in the digitalization process of document collections at small herit age institutions.
With this in mind, we have collaborated in the Project Gado8 at Johns Hopkins University. While our partners in the Department of Computer
69 [6] Haloo Akseli, http://halooakseli. fi/collections/ (Ac cessed 26.06.2014.) [7] diggLAM, http://sysrep.aalto.fi/ digglam/ (Accessed 26.06.2014.) [8] Project gado, http://project gado.org (Accessed 26.06.2014.)
NEW MEDIA’S THIRD WAVE
Science at Aalto University, School of Science, have developed a Linux based interface for the open source Gado2 robot assistant,9 the researchers at Media Lab have worked with the museum experts and studied a selection of the communities that converge at this heritage institution.
It is interesting to ponder how Ubicomp might be adapted to heritage environments, since it is not only the technical systems’ design that is im portant but also the content created with and through them. It is safe to assume that someday it will be possible, indeed, to “print” cultural matter and artifacts in 3D.
Nowadays the notion of creating a digital facsimile — or replica of an original artifact rendered and augmented with digital media — is an estab
lished concept. This concept, that we
“our effort is an early
explored through our research withdigital facsimiles, such as the Map of
example of this t ype of worK
[9] Project gado, http://projectgado. org/aalto-univer sity/ (Accessed 26.06.2014.) [10] grand Projet La Caverne du Pont D’Arc, http://lacav ernedupontdarc.org/ the-cavern-pont darc/ (Accessed 26.06.2014.) [11] The Finnish Pavilion at the 1900 World Fair in Paris, http://paviljonki. mlog.taik.fi. (Ac cessed 26.06.2014.)
Mexico 1550 and the Carta Marina of 1539, need not be limited to objects but can expand to include environ ments. The prehistoric cave of Grotte Chauvet, a very recent addition to the list of World Heritage sites, is an example that this is already being considered.10
In his review of one of the early publications about the discovery, art historian Ernst Gombrich compares the cavern to the Hubble Telescope in its ability to extend the range of our vision and provide us with an un expectedly distant view of the past of human art. This is also evidence that the facsimile approach is now a regular framework used in research, preservation and dissemination strategies.
In the years to come, the 3D facsimile of the cave being developed will not only allow its study and preservation, but it will also enable us to experience the environment and art of Grotte Chauvet.
But what about in the cases where the items either no longer exist, or have come to be as part of what is referred to as the intangible heritage of human communities? Our effort to create a 3D historical re-construction of the “Finnish Pavilion at the 1900 World Fair in Paris”11 is also an early example of this type of work, that involves an interdisciplinary collabora tion and combines art and design and historical research with computer graphics, human computer interface (HCI) and new media.
NEW MEDIA’S THIRD WAVE
To develop frameworks that allow us to better understand and render the intangible might be among the most exciting discoveries still to be realized in this area. One place to begin and where Ubicomp could make a contribution is through the development of concepts such as ‘smart’ sou venirs comprising multiple interaction layers that disclose the histories and narratives embedded within.
Here also is a notable opportunity for the new media to research and study how simulations can be used, not only to generate knowledge re garding the material world, but also as a source of inspiration for the new artifacts.
DESIgN & NEW MEDIA
The definition of new media can be a tricky thing, at least when people opt for too simple a definition. It’s quite clear that new media can’t be lim
ited to meaning only digitized
“we’re always searching for the
media, because nowadays everything’s digital.
’new’ in new media”
“My argument is that we’re al ways searching for the ’new’ in new media. That’s the task,” says Philip Dean.
He quotes Lev Manovich’s definition: the essential feature is codification. After cultural and media objects have been translated into code, they can be manipulated in new ways.
This approach means that things like digital cinema aren’t within the Me dia Lab’s scope as such. After all, cinema has existed for well over a century and it’s been recorded on a variety of media during that time.
The change from 35mm photochemical film to digital cameras and Digital Cinema Packages is a logical development within the film industry, but doesn’t suddenly make it new media — any more than radio becomes new media when sound is recorded using a digital recorder, edited on non-linear software and broadcast digitally.
Indeed, new media is digital and therefore modifiable in a way that con crete, non-digital media aren’t. When digitized, sounds, images, videos, and all other kinds of media can be manipulated in ways that weren’t possible before. New media is, in a word, programmable.
Another feature of new media was formulated by Lev Manovich in his 1998 paper entitled, Database as a Symbolic Form: “Many new media objects do not tell stories; they don’t have beginning or end; in fact, they don’t have any development, thematically, formally or otherwise which would organize their elements into a sequence. Instead, they are collections of individual items, where every item has the same significance as any other. ”
Even as devices, paradigms, and programming languages come and go, data structures remain the essential part of new media.
Still, further distinctions with the terminology can be made. Perttu Hämäläinen avoids talking about new media, because ’new media’ has been overloaded with meaning.
Perttu Hämäläinen, who is the main teaching professor within the Lab’s Games Design studies, prefers the term interactive media. It fits Hämäläin
DESIgN & NEW MEDIA
en’s research purposes in gaming better, as it points away from cinema and other traditional media. Interaction emphasizes the kinds of factors that cannot be completely anticipated, which in turn have an effect on the research methods and projects.
Working in new media means dealing with a moving target: the things that were unthinkable to most people 20 years ago are now a part of eve ryday life for hundreds of millions.
“We can look at the trends, the discourses, and the values new forms of media represent. Then we can place that in our own discourse by means of critical reflection,” Mika Tuomola says.
The term new media has acquired different connotations since the turn of the millennium, after which comics have been prone to asking ’what’s new about this new media exactly?’ Maybe academia and its terminology aren’t quite used to the way technologies drift in and out of fashion, like the Web 2.0 movement that became a laughing stock almost as quickly as it began.
“New media still exists and interesting companies and projects are born out of it. In fact it looks like it’s expanding,” Leinonen says.
New media innovations are the things that could not have happened without new media, even though now they might feel self-evident, be cause the convergence feels like a banal fact that’s always been present. Cleaning Day, a hugely popular self-organized second-hand market day, is a new media phenomenon just as much as its cousin Restaurant day and the populist Finns party, the popularity of which grew, at least partly, out of online debate.
If new media is the core subject of the lab, then design is the practical and intellectual glue that holds together the work done at the Media Lab, creating a coherent whole from disparate components.
This means that the design process itself is of paramount importance. Marjo Mäenpää, Director at Division of Art Policy at the Ministry of Edu cation and Culture, has spent a lot of time thinking about what happens in media design, where the creators are constantly exploring new ground and trying to find innovative ways of combining usability and substance.
DESIgN & NEW MEDIA
“[Managing new media design] is a different world from managing bridge engineers who have blueprints and can calculate everything down to the last detail before they start building,” Mäenpää says.
Dealing with immaterial processes is a much fuzzier thing. Quite often projects start out from an idea that has to be turned into a concept, which then has to be shaped into a working system or software product.
It’s possible that the only things you know for certain are the deadline and the amount of resources you can spend.