A Survey of Geometric Analysis in Cultural Heritage

We present a review of recent techniques for performing geometric analysis in cultural heritage (CH) applications. The survey is aimed at researchers in the areas of computer graphics, computer vision and CH computing, as well as to scholars and practitioners in the CH field. The problems considered include shape perception enhancement, restoration and preservation support, monitoring over time, object interpretation and collection analysis. All of these problems typically rely on an understanding of the structure of the shapes in question at both a local and global level. In this survey, we discuss the different problem forms and review the main solution methods, aided by classification criteria based on the geometric scale at which the analysis is performed and the cardinality of the relationships among object parts exploited during the analysis. We finalize the report by discussing open problems and future perspectives

Space and time scaling issues in data management: the virtual restitution of Cluniac heritage

Recent research projects led in Cluny have focused on interoperability issues between computer-aided design (CAD) and geographic information system (GIS). In one of these projects, the Gunzo project went through a complete digital restitution of what was the largest church in the world during five centuries. In another project, a 3D GIS of the Cluny region was set up and led to the idea of designing an online historical and archaeological 3D database. This involves the development of time-based 3D data management functionalities in which both CAD and GIS could exchange information. Thanks to the close collaboration between interdisciplinary fields, the team managed to formulate the basis of a joint workflow. These steps are promising and could meet in the future this long-time dream of the scientific community: to be able to tie together CAD and GIS models with temporality on a single georeferenced collaborative platform, so closely that it will be possible to navigate through the history of a city in 3D.Conseil Régional de Bourgogne, FEDER, ENSAM, Conseil Général de Saône et Loir

Archaeology

The contents of this book show the implementation of new methodologies applied to archaeological sites. Chapters have been grouped in four sections: New Approaches About Archaeological Theory and Methodology; The Use of Geophysics on Archaeological Fieldwork; New Applied Techniques - Improving Material Culture and Experimentation; and Sharing Knowledge - Some Proposals Concerning Heritage and Education. Many different research projects, many different scientists and authors from different countries, many different historical times and periods, but only one objective: working together to increase our knowledge of ancient populations through archaeological work. The proposal of this book is to diffuse new methods and techniques developed by scientists to be used in archaeological works. That is the reason why we have thought that a publication on line is the best way of using new technology for sharing knowledge everywhere. Discovering, sharing knowledge, asking questions about our remote past and origins, are in the basis of humanity, and also are in the basis of archaeology as a science

A poetics of uncertainty: a chorographic survey of the life of John Trevisa and the site of Glasney College, Cornwall, mediated through locative arts practice

Connections between the medieval Cornishman and translator John Trevisa (1342-1402) and Glasney College in Cornwall are explored in this thesis to create a deep map about the figure and the site, articulated in a series of micro-narratives or anecdotae. The research combines book-based strategies and performative encounters with people and places, to build a rich, chorographic survey described in images, sound files, objects and texts. A key research problem – how to express the forensic fingerprint of that which is invisible in the historic record – is described as a poetics of uncertainty, a speculative response to information that teeters on the brink of what can be reliably known. This poetics combines multi-modal writing to communicate events in the life of the research, auto-ethnographically, from the point of view of an artist working in the academy. As such, it makes a pedagogical contribution to reflective writing about creative practice. John Trevisa, in the context of contemporary Cornish culture, is a contested figure because his linguistic innovations, in the course of translating key texts from Latin into the English vernacular, make no obvious contribution to Kernowek (Cornish), which is currently undergoing revival from a position of extinction. However, Glasney College, where Trevisa is likely to have been educated, is generally regarded as the centre for the production of the Ordinalia, a cycle of medieval mystery plays written uniquely in Kernowek. This thesis considers the vocabulary that Trevisa innovated, such as concept, fiction, virtual, as crucial to research writing but calls for a new vocabulary to articulate the feminised, labile research processes that characterise this research. It also uses the site and the figure as templates to articulate wider, contemporary systems under stress socially, culturally and politically

A poetics of uncertainty: a chorographic survey of the life of John Trevisa and the site of Glasney College, Cornwall, mediated through locative arts practice

Connections between the medieval Cornishman and translator John Trevisa (1342-1402) and Glasney College in Cornwall are explored in this thesis to create a deep map about the figure and the site, articulated in a series of micro-narratives or anecdotae. The research combines book-based strategies and performative encounters with people and places, to build a rich, chorographic survey described in images, sound files, objects and texts. A key research problem – how to express the forensic fingerprint of that which is invisible in the historic record – is described as a poetics of uncertainty, a speculative response to information that teeters on the brink of what can be reliably known. This poetics combines multi-modal writing to communicate events in the life of the research, auto-ethnographically, from the point of view of an artist working in the academy. As such, it makes a pedagogical contribution to reflective writing about creative practice. John Trevisa, in the context of contemporary Cornish culture, is a contested figure because his linguistic innovations, in the course of translating key texts from Latin into the English vernacular, make no obvious contribution to Kernowek (Cornish), which is currently undergoing revival from a position of extinction. However, Glasney College, where Trevisa is likely to have been educated, is generally regarded as the centre for the production of the Ordinalia, a cycle of medieval mystery plays written uniquely in Kernowek. This thesis considers the vocabulary that Trevisa innovated, such as concept, fiction, virtual, as crucial to research writing but calls for a new vocabulary to articulate the feminised, labile research processes that characterise this research. It also uses the site and the figure as templates to articulate wider, contemporary systems under stress socially, culturally and politically

Sculpture and the contested ground of public and private space

Through applied practice and historical research, this studio-led doctoral project seeks to identify the intrinsic differences and mutual interdependencies of private and public art.  By analysing the tensions between the rigid constraints of sculpture in the public sphere and the aesthetic flexibility and freedom of the private studio - this research shows how sculpture creates spaces for innovation and reflection in complex and contested urban sites.  In this context art has the potential to act as a conduit between individuals and their community, as a material site of social communication across time and place in which ancient antecedents of the sacred and profane remain, to this day, detectable and relevant.   The research follows a studio process-driven framework, narrating how I have negotiated the contested ground of public and private space. It follows the design and production of specific artworks for both domains, with each process analysed in the five chapters of the dissertation. Starting with a small sculptural work depicting an event in social history, my findings on context and the social, material fabric of the city, lead in the next chapter to the development and completion of a major site-specific, public sculptural relief.  Designed to commemorate the personal and public social achievement of those who engaged with the site, it is also representative of wider social contexts. The social complexities of relations between local use of the site and the broader historical context were explored in a public work that I examine from its design and commission, through to its completion.  From the models used for this larger public work, questions arose concerning art-based solutions to figural representation at key intersections of everyday exchanges between the individual and society. These were explored in an extended series of personal, and experimental figurative sketch models.  In many ways, the intimacy of these maquettes, as well as research on votive practices, became fundamental to the design for a final major commission for Cabrini Hospital, commemorating St Frances Xavier Cabrini, in which the `contested ground' was the sense of sacred and the body, in both the public and private realms.  Finally, the research takes a wider perspective through comparative analysis of two contemporary public sculptures in urban contexts: Callum Morton's Monument Park of 2015, and Gillian Wearing's Statue of Dame Millicent Fawcett, 2018. These large-scale works are analysed in relation to research for my own small studio works and to a number of small scaled works by the Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss Suddenly This Overview, completed between 1981-2012 This research has revealed that the ground of contestation between private and public domains is not simply an actual, material, and spatial one, but also a complex socio-political domain.  I position art as an intermediary in this field of production and social meaning as a process which not only simply reveals the contested ground of sculpture but also requires negotiation within it.  This innovative perspective provides a significant contribution to art in the contemporary field, and particularly to the potential of sculpture and its contribution to urban life

Investigating London’s Post Medieval Pipe Clay Figurines From 1500-1800: Critiquing 3D Approaches to Mould Generation Analysis Via English and Transatlantic Case Studies

This thesis has two main strands to its research, one being the first comprehensive synthesis of London’s post-medieval pipe clay figurines dating to the period 1500-1800, combined with examining the potential for inexpensive 3D imaging technology to carry out a new digitised methodology for mould matching and figurine generational analysis. By applying this new digital methodology new insights have been gained on the wider context of these artefacts. The thesis also contextualises the London material with a broad array of academic publications on pipe clay figurines from Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Jamaica, and America. This has included an extensive comparison between the previously unappreciated pipe clay figurines from London and figurines from Germany and the Low Countries and a specific comparison with data collected from the United States of America. This compendium of data provides more information to examine a range of questions, such as production, distribution, iconography, intended audience, and the general economic, social, and religious setting in which they operated. By drawing upon these resources and new avenues of research this investigation offers an insight into pipe clay figurines within Germany and the Low Countries by examining a series of archaeological and contemporary literary sources. Following chapters go on to explore both the London and New World assemblages, presenting details on the distribution of these collections, a contextualised discussion on consumer markets, and iconographical relations of specific case studies. It is from this assemblage that figurines presenting similar stylistic qualities were selected for further analysis via 3D imaging methodologies to comprehend how closely, if at all, the morphometrics of the figurines compare and whether these figurines were produced from related mould groups. The parameters for this analysis are developed in Chapters 4 and 6, which discuss controlled datasets and a series of tests investigating the accuracy of inexpensive 3D imaging technology and their suitability for pipe clay figurine 3D imaging. These tests also analysed other potential influences on the morphometrics of the figurines and designed error parameters to be taken into account so that potential mould relationships could still be observed between figurines that had experienced damage, erosion, or manipulated on removal from their mould. These two strands are then brought together in Chapter 8, where new theories are discussed concerning the causes behind the changing iconography of these figurines, particularly those from London and the New World. This thesis also highlights the wider potential of 3D modelling for artefact studies and the limitations of Structure from Motion in the field of mould analysis. Overall, the research covered within this thesis has provided new details on a previously unstudied dataset alongside a much-needed critique of a new technological approach to 3D modelling and a brand new and revitalising means of carrying out mould-matching analysis of artefacts and other archaeological material