Research Report Meeting Eleonora Lupo | Indaco | May, 8 2012

Rethinking the role of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) within the XXI Century Museums: design strategies and technologies for “trans-cultural practices”

Eleonora Lupo, Indaco, eleonora.lupo@polimi.it

Research motivations Intangible Cultural Heritage, due to its process nature of “performance embodied in people” (Kishenblatt Gimblett, 2004) is considered a paradigmatic Heritage for MeLa issues:

- is living and potentially “migrating” and therefore emblematic to “magnify” the possible porous contacts points among different heritages, making them practicable for “dismantling hierarchies and divisions” (Pietrobruno 2009);

-  is performed, taught and socialised, in other words, continuously “practiced”, and this leads to question the traditional and conservative strategies of the museums (in fact it is more easily represented outside museums: performances, events, thematic parks…)

In addition is appropriate for the Indaco focus:

-  is immaterial and therefore a promising ambit to explore the potentialities of digital technology in making it tanglibly experienceable through narration and appropriation;

Therefore the need of envisioning new trans-cultural strategies for ICH within the XXI Century Museums, supported by ICT

Specific issues and research paths

ICH and multi-inter-trans-cross cultural issues (focus on ICH and diversity integration) ICH and XXI Century Museums ICH and (digital and social) technologies ( focus on ICH interactivity)

ICH

Research questions -  Who owns Intangible Heritage? -  Which forms of ICH?

First hypothesis Differences and analogies among identity, history and collective memory: whereas history is something that has been, therefore is fixed, memory and identity are in continue evolution (are active, “living” and subject to changes).

In memory the past exists as reconstruction in function of the needs of the present. This reconstruction is eminently collective: collective memory is characterised by the “re-constructability” or re-enactment

Identity is “cultural product” negotiated according to categories relevant in relation to a context or a social order (Sen 2006) References Arizpe, L. (2004), Intangible cultural heritage, diversity and coherence in Museum International, 56(1-2) Centre for research in memory, narrative and history of the Brighton University Kirshenblatt Gimblett B. (2004), Intangible heritage as metacultural production (an excerpt from the forthcoming 'museum frictions, public cultures global transformation'), in Museum International, 56(1-2), 52- 64 Lira S., Amoêda R., Constructing Intangible Heritage, Green Lines Institute for Sustainable Development, 2009 UNESCO, (2003), Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage

ICH and multi-inter-transcultural issues

Research questions - How ICH is used for the maintenance, transmission and reproduction of identity in the processes of cultures dislocation typical of globalization (i.e. migration): which roles for museums and technologies? - How ICH can be transformed in an occasion of trans-cultural encounter, understanding and comprehension, “dismantling hierarchies and divisions” (Pietrobruno 2009): which roles for museums and technologies?

First hypothesis ICH is: traditional, contemporary and living at the same time, inclusive and representative, community-based ICH is embedded in people: is a migrating and evolving heritage ICH is local based: it undergoes to delocalisation and recontextualisation, translation, appropriation, negotiation processes

References http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?lg=en&pg=00003 Knopka M. “Preservation of intangible heritage in a displaced context”, in Lira S., Amoêda R. at alii (eds), Sharing Cultures 2009 International conference on Intangible heritage proceedings, Green Lines Institute for Sustainable Development, 2009 Swense G., Saeter O., “Multiple memories. Subjective dimensions in heritage appreciation”, in Lira S., Amoêda R. at alii (eds), Sharing Cultures 2009 International conference on Intangible heritage proceedings, Green Lines Institute for Sustainable Development, 2009 Vinson I. (ed.), The cultural heritage of migrants (special issue of Museum International), UNESCO, n° 233-234, May 2007.

ICH and XX Century Museums

Research questions -  How museums exhibit and represent today ICH? -  How to design performative repertories within XXI century museums? -  How can ICH be “practiced” within museums?

First hypothesis Hidden heritage between object and ideas: bridging collections, exhibitions and communities

ICH as a new diffused and living museum&archive (inside and outside the museums) for the XXI Century

Blurring the boundary between tangible and intangible

The challenge: from safeguarding to practice

References Silberman N. A., Ename International Colloquium: Between Objects and Ideas: Rethinking the Role of Intangible Heritage: Ghent, Belgium, March 26–28, 2008, in International Journal of Cultural Property (2008), 15 : pp 441-442 Carvalho Ana, Os Museus e o Património Cultural Imaterial: Estratégias para o Desenvolvimento de Boas Práticas, Universidade de Évora (CIDEHUS) and Edições Colibri, 2011 (196 p.) Alivizatou, M., “Museums and Intangible Heritage: The Dynamics of an‘Unconventional’ Relationship”, in Institute of Archaeology 17 (2006): 47-57

ICH and ICT

Research questions - How can ICH exploitation processes be designed in order to facilitate experience, appreciation, understanding, interpretation, translation, ownership, reproduction and appropriation of ICH (George, 2009, in Lira, Amoêda): which roles for museums and technologies? - How can ICT representation move from monolithic narrations to strategies for the interpretation, traceability, translation, re-writing of the heritage (by design strategies and digital technologies and devices)? - How can the "context” and space be incorporated in the fruition of ICH? -  How can people interact with ICH?

References Giaccardi E., Palen L., “The Social Production of Heritage through Cross-media Interaction: Making Place for Place-making”, in International Journal of Heritage Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3, May 2008, pp. 281–297 Rankin P., Hansteen-Izora R., Packer L., “‘Living Cultural Storybases’:Self-empowering narratives for minority cultures” in International Community Informatics Conference on ‘Constructing and sarin memory: community

Interactivity

Digital technologies

Digital interactivity

Not interactive technology

Not technological interactivity (mechanical or manipulative)

First hypothesis Beyond preservation: New directions for technological innovation through intangible cultural heritage practice

Social production of heritage through interaction: self empowering narratives

Cases index Primary cases (20) fitting MeLa Criteria - Museums setting - Exhibitions - Installations

Memory of Andalusia Museum, Granada (ES) Museum of Chinese in America, New York (USA) A oriente. Città uomini e dei sulla via della seta, Terme di Diocleziano, Roma (IT) The spirit of Islam. Experiencing Islam through Calligraphy, Museum of anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver (CDN) Fare gli italiani, OGR Officina Grandi Riparazioni, Torino (IT) …

Secondary cases (relevant for ICH) -  Performances, public events - Thematic parks - Cultural programs, educational initiatives -  Web repositories (site, archives..)

“Medvoices” (progetto della Mediterranean voices association /London Metropolitan School) “Extra! Exchange traditions” (progetto finanziato nell’ambito di Cultura 2000) “Homm” ICT for hands-on multi-media laboratories in museums …

Fare gli Italiani Trieste di Magris A Oriente

Memory of Andalusia Museum

Museo Martinitt Churchill Museum

Museum of Memory Calaf

Museo della Resistenza

The immigrant experience

Museo Lab della Mente Museum of Chinese in america

Whispering Table

Spirit of Islam

Museo diffuso Torino

Museo Arti Femminili Museum of Memory Chile

MUSEUMS

EXHIBITIONS

INSTALLATIONS

House of music, Wien

Centro de interpretacion Santiago

Museo del Cinema, Torino

Living Cultural Storybase

WEB REPOSITORIES

Memory Bank Contemporary Authentic

PERFORMANCES

PROGRAMS

THEME PARKS

homm

City of Memory It’s your story!

Med voices Extra!

Cases individual analisys

Multi / Inter / Trans – Cultural issues

Cultural friction

Technological issues

Critical synthesis and operative insights

Format Note: the case analisys has not been conducted by architectonical and museological point of view but considering the contents, the setting or space organisation and the ICT

1. Script or palimpsest of the user experience timeline (Fare gli Italiani)

Cases individual analisys

2. Contents (kind of ICH): how much self-represented and representative? How much de-localised and recontextualised? How much contemporary and alive? - - History of places and people - - stories and memories of communities and people - - ethnographic heritage: life traditions, religion, rituals, artisanal knowledge… - - cultural expressions of communities (arts, languages, music, theatre, cinema...)

Cases comparative analisys

Churchill Museum

Museo diffuso Torino

Museum of Chinese in america

Museo Arti Femminili Spirit of Islam

House of music, Wien Centro de interpretacion Santiago

Museo della Resistenza

Cases comparative analisys

3. Display systems and techniques (kind of ICT): how much context based? How much enabling? How much “open”? - - audio-video and multimedia installations (screen, headset and headphones…) - - interactive installations (TU Interfaces, touch screen, interactive stations, booths and walls…) - - sensitive environments - - smart phones and mobile devices - - on line repositories

First insights and hypotheses “trans-cultural strategies supported by digital techniques to be adopted by museums to promote intercultural dialogue by ICH” (preliminary considerations derived from the case studies analysis)

1. Experiencing and sharing the ICH as an amplified and enriched heritage by the use of ICT

2. rewriting and stratifying the ICH as a multilayered and prismatic trans-cultural heritage by the use of ICT

3. enabling and activating the ICH as a “connective heritage” by the use of ICT

4. exhibiting and designing the ICH as a space/context “sensitive heritage” by the use of ICT

1. ICH as an amplified and enriched heritage by ICT ICH expressions are often ephemeral and volatile: necessity of emphasizing the plural ‘histories’, the relationships between present and past, the presence of subordinate and marginalized histories, archive practices and popular memory

Enriched narrations are mnemotopos amplifing the experience beyond the exhibition setting and the space display

Responsive objects/ settings (Graeme Brooker) Narration museums and Sensitive environments (Studio Azzurro)

>> Languages for staging and storytelling: Raffaella Tocchianesi

Case study focus: Fare gli Italiani - Temporary exhibition organised in 2011 for the 150° anniversary of the Italian State. The ICH presented is the collective history of people, along the 150 years during which “people became italians”.

Sections are: -  Agricultural and rural life -  School -  Catholic church -  Migration -  WWI -  WWII -  Political participation -  Factories -  Mafia -  Market products -  Transportation -  Mass media

Case study focus: Fare gli Italiani Narrative strategy: cultural storytelling approach offering a multicultural perspective, with indirect self-representation dynamics

The principal ICT tools are: - Interactive stations like bookstand, screen and digital projections, TUI

ICT by museological perspective ICT functions as guidance and orientation ICT works as interpretative tool

ICT by visitors perspective ICT enables observation ICT supports/asks action (interrogation, selection..) ICT stimulates emotions

Case study focus: Memory of Andalucia Museums Permanent setting of the museum that shows the culture and history of Andalusia with an “intercultural dialogue” approach and direct/indirect representation (case edited by Lucia Parrino) Sections are: -  Diversity of landscape -  Countryside and town -  Ways of life -  Art and culture

The principal ICT tools are: - Interactive screen, walls and digital projections, atlas and dynamic show cases

ICT by museological perspective; ICT works as interpretative and in depth examination tool

ICT by visitors perspective ICT enables observation ICT supports/asks action (interrogation, selection..) ICT stimulates emotions

2. ICH as a “multilayered/prismatical” heritage by ICT ICH is living heritage subject to dynamic changes: multiple interpretations (that are influenced by different cultures perspectives and points of views) can be supported by digital and ipertextual narratives. Participative tools, devices and system can allow the re-writing and stratification of personal contents. A prismatical multiplication of owners, addressees and contents.

>> Participation and public curacy: Sara Radice >> Personal contents and devices: Davide Spallazzo INput EXperience

Self-representation

Case study focus: Museum of memory Calaf Temporary installation (“ephemeral museum-booth”) exhibited in Calaf during the Project Idensitat, with remembrances referred especially to the Spanish civil war

The principal ICT tools are: Video projections, web repository

ICT by museological perspective ICT functions as contents and sources gathering

ICT by visitors perspective ICT enables observation, participation and contribution ICT stimulates emotions

Case study focus: Museum of Chinese in America A dialogue-driven museum tell the stories of 400+ years of Chinese American history and the impact Chinese have made on American culture, society, and economy (inter-cultural approach) with a direct self- representation

The principal ICT tools are: Media recording, dialogic stations, environmental media

ICT by museological perspective ICT functions as contents and sources gathering ICT works as interpretative tool

ICT by visitors perspective ICT enables observation, participation and contribution ICT stimulates emotions

Being the ICH experience not consuming the cultural content, it can be not only preserved but easily practiced within museums in a trans-cultural frame: with a heritage oriented approach, addressing the other’s culture understanding; with a relational approach, helping trans-communities building;

ICT supporting mutual understanding by: - - creating and activating “synapses” for other cultures, to promote a trans-cultural experience and practice - - enabling sense of community with other people/visitors, to promote trans-cultural communities

>> building visitors communities: Davide Spallazzo

3. ICH as a “connective” heritage by ICT

Case study focus: Wispering table interactive installation telling personal stories about the symbolic meaning of food and rituals of Judaism (comparing with the other world religion) at the Jüdisches Museum of Berlin (case edited by Lucia Parrino)

The principal ICT tools are: TUI

ICT by museological perspective ICT works as interpretative and in-depth examination tool

ICT by visitors perspective ICT asks for action (choosing, listening…) ICT enables understanding, confrontations, relations ICT stimulates emotions

Case study focus: Spirit of islam

The principal ICT tools are: Web repository, video

ICT by museological perspective ICT works as interpretative and in-depth examination tool

ICT by visitors perspective ICT enables understanding, confrontations, relations ICT stimulates emotions

An exhibition and web repository to experience Islam through calligraphy, with an intercultural approach and direct self-representation

Case study focus: A Oriente Temporary exhibition about the Silk Route where different populations for provenance, religions, traditions were living together in respect and tolerance (intercultural approach with plural direct/indirect representation)

Itinerary of 18 multimedia stops that correspond to 12existing places of the journey: Palmira, Ctesifonte, Taq-e Bostan, Merv, Samarcanda, Ghazni, Kucha, Turfan, Dunhuang, Chang’an Tur ‘Abdi Swat

Case study focus: A Oriente The principal ICT tools are: Interactive stations with screen, boxes and digital projections, TUI, sensitive environmnets

ICT by museological perspective ICT works as interpretative and in-depth examination tool

ICT by visitors perspective ICT asks for action (approaching, lening out, moving around) ICT enables understanding, confrontations, relations ICT stimulates emotions

Being a practice ICH is always context related and, even in dislocation and re-contextualization, can embed the spatial experience in the fruition, using and “refracting” the museum space and environment in: - - performing spatial interactions (space meaning amplification) - - building relations with its native context (metaphorical spatial re-contextualisation)

Activating contents and engaging conversations, performanaces, simulations through methaphorical space sensitive gestures and behaviours

4. ICH as a “space/context sensitive” heritage by ICT

Finalised behaviours/gestures

+ -

conscious behaviours/gestures +

-

i.e. approaching, leaning in…

i.e. touching, selecting, flipping pages, simulating… i.e. blowing…

i.e. moving around, walking on…

Case study focus: A Oriente The principal ICT tools are: Interactive stations with screen, boxes and digital projections, TUI, sensitive environmnets

ICT by museological perspective ICT works as interpretative and in-depth examination tool

ICT by visitors perspective ICT asks for action (approaching, lening out, moving around) ICT enables understanding, confrontations, relations ICT stimulates emotions

Case study focus: House of Music Wien

Interactive museum which tells the history of Vienna Philharmonic

The museum is located in the former apartment of the composer, conductor and founder of the Vienna Philharmonic, Otto Nicolai (1810-1849)

Sections: - Wien Philharmonic -  Sonoshere - The great Masters

Case study focus: House of Music Wien The principal ICT tools are: Interactive stations with headphones, TUI, sensitive environments

ICT by museological perspective ICT works as interpretative and in-depth examination tool

ICT by visitors perspective ICT asks for action (approaching, touching, simulating) ICT stimulates understanding, learning ICT stimulates emotions

an articulated strategy focused on:

- picturing a frame that can function as a comprehensive background where re-contextualize the single weak or unknown elements that could not be understood and appreciated if standing alone;

- making connections among elements that could offer unconventional, different perspectives or unexpected path and stories;

- making out a story from a single ignored element, exploiting its narrative and emotive potential i.e by storytelling;

- engaging people in telling their story in order to promote self-representation.

Some preliminary conclusions places, narratives and tools for “dialogue”

A museum as “process”

“open scripts” fostering the contemporary and forthcoming shape of heritage and visitor’s experience

trans-cultural rhetorics changing the monolithic narrations towards multi-perspective representations and activations

“Archipelagos of identities” mediated by systems, connections, technologies

Some preliminary conclusions places, narratives and tools for “dialogue”

thanks

Eleonora Lupo, Indaco, eleonora.lupo@polimi.it