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Accepted Paper:

Unpacking the aesthetics and politics of 3D digitalisation through curatorial design interventions at the British Museum.  
Amelia Knowlson (Sheffield Hallam University)

Paper short abstract:

This paper uses curatorial design interventions to explore the effect of 3D scanning and printing at The British Museum. Spanning the realms of curation, design and artistic practice it reveals systems of hierarchical value, knowledge transformations and considerations around control and access.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims to explore the decision-making process behind 3D digitisation by using creative methods to examine micro pre-existing and emerging 3D projects at The British Museum. The work formed part of a 3-month residency at The British Museum that sought to understand the effect 3D scanning and printing has on the museum from the perspective of the curator.

The residency consisted of working with 8 curators to contribute and explore the aesthetics and politics of 3D digital artefacts within the museum landscape. Each curator was given a box of curiosities, inspired by 'cultural probes' (Gaver, Dunne and Pacenti 1999), containing diary pages, flow charts, questions and maps that sought to reveal the relationships, value and judgments behind 3D digital projects. Museum objects at the centre of each curator's project were 3D scanned and used as curatorial outcomes, as well as a means of facilitating discussions in complement to the box.

Such a method offers a new way of thinking about 3D digitalisation that could not have been possible with traditional means of inquiry. Spanning the realms of curation, design and artistic practice it revealed systems of hierarchical value, knowledge transformations and considerations around control and access. Curators added their own content, visualisations, metadata and notes to the box, revealing the types of information considered intrinsic to not only approaching and completing 3D digital projects, but also documenting them as well.

- Gaver, B Dunne, T. and Pacenti, E. (1999). Design: Cultural probes. Interactions, 6 (1), 21-29.

Panel P011
The effects of digitisation: art, object, knowledge, responsibility
  Session 1 Friday 1 June, 2018, -