Sensitive Pictures:Emotional Interpretation in the Museum

Museums are interested in designing emotional visitor experiences to complement traditional interpretations. HCI is interested in the relationship between Affective Computing and Affective Interaction. We describe Sensitive Pictures, an emotional visitor experience co-created with the Munch art museum. Visitors choose emotions, locate associated paintings in the museum, experience an emotional story while viewing them, and self-report their response. A subsequent interview with a portrayal of the artist employs computer vision to estimate emotional responses from facial expressions. Visitors are given a souvenir postcard visualizing their emotional data. A study of 132 members of the public (39 interviewed) illuminates key themes: designing emotional provocations; capturing emotional responses; engaging visitors with their data; a tendency for them to align their views with the system's interpretation; and integrating these elements into emotional trajectories. We consider how Affective Computing can hold up a mirror to our emotions during Affective Interaction.Comment: Accepted for publication in CHI 202

Abiotic Determinants of the Historical Buildings Biodeterioration in the Former Auschwitz II – Birkenau Concentration and Extermination Camp

The paper presents the results of a study conducted at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświecim on the occurrence of biodeterioration. Visual assessment of the buildings revealed signs of deterioration of the buildings in the form of dampness, bulging and crumbling plaster, and wood fiber splitting. The external surfaces, and especially the concrete strips and ground immediately adjoining the buildings, were colonized by bryophytes, lichens, and algae. These organisms developed most intensively close to the ground on the northern sides of the buildings. Inside the buildings, molds and bacteria were not found to develop actively, while algae and wood-decaying fungi occurred locally. The factors conducive to biological corrosion in the studied buildings were excessive dampness of structural partitions close to the ground and a relative air humidity of above 70%, which was connected to ineffective moisture insulation. The influence of temperature was smaller, as it mostly affected the quantitative composition of the microorganisms and the qualitative composition of the algae. Also the impact of light was not very strong, but it was conducive to algae growth

GIFT:Hybrid Museum Experiences through Gifting and Play

he GIFT project develops new approaches to creating hybrid physi-cal-digital visitor experiences in museums. Through design exploration of two concepts focusing on gifting and playful appropriation, the project charts how museums can create a deeper and more meaningful experience by giving visitors the tools to tell their own stories. The project is highly cross-disciplinary com-bining HCI research, artist-led exploration, technology explorations, and experi-ence design in collaboration with museums. Furthermore, the project gathers 10 prominent museums from Europe and the US in an action research project that both serves to ground the prototypes and framework in the needs of museums, while also facilitating the museum sector's need to become 'digital-ready', under-standing and capitalising on digital technology. As the project has progressed through half of its duration, we report on initial findings and how these have shaped our direction of progress

Roles of female video game characters and their impact on gender representation

Due to immense popularity of video games the author investigates the presence of gender portrayal within them. The purpose of this study is to thoroughly analyse a general phenomenon, such as gender, within video games to develop a better understanding of its particularities in this form of media and to expand the general body of knowledge on video games as a research topic. As prior literature shows, gender within video games can be either defined by its biased and sexualized character or by a tendency towards equality and strength for woman. To explain those varied results the author introduces the category of role as an important factor for character representation based on the use of theoretical frameworks of symbolic interactionism, more particularly dramaturgical approach of E. Goffman. She then further proceeds with a qualitative discourse analysis of both protagonist and support characters from 22 different games. The author finds that there is a visible difference within the manners females are presented depending on their role. Lead characters are more likely to be strong, independent and self-sufficient whereas support characters most often require immediate help, are dependent on others and are more likely to be abused. Presented results can account for some of the variety in prior research and they open the field of video game studies to possibly new research topics.

GIFT project – early stage critical reflections from a meta study

This paper presents a meta study that has been taking place within the GIFT consortium. The study has been conducted by a researcher using ethnographic methods and provides information on observations that could be pertinent to issues in humanities, technology and exploitation in context of cultural informatics. I posit that interdisciplinarity of the field is a great advantage which is also difficult to manage on a practical level and can contribute to misunderstandings and chaos. Furthermore, position of technology in museum context often is overstressed. Developing critical approaches and giving more agency to research partners that are not core part of the team could strengthen potential project outcomes and exploitation of results. GIF

Articulating The User : a Discursive-Material Analysis of Humans in Interdisciplinary Design Collaborations

Technology design taking place in interdisciplinary collaborations is a complicated process which, due to the nature of available research funding, shapes much of the research that falls under the umbrella of Research through Design (RtD). This dissertation is a meta-study of an EU funded research and innovation project, GIFT, situated in the domain of museum technology and involving multiple partners. The purpose of this Horizon 2020 collaboration was to look at ways to meaningfully incorporate technology in museum context, and included museum institutions, researchers, and commercial partners. The dissertation discusses how the concept of The User, which is central to this form of collaboration, is defined and negotiated both in theory and in practice. Based on three years of fieldwork, and using case study methodology and ethnographic methods, the author investigates how “users” are conceptualized and present in the development cycle of the innovative museum installations developed within the GIFT project. The author problematizes the process on one hand through discourse studies, in particular the theoretical lens of the ´discursive-material knot´, on the other using design theory, with special attention to approach of Johan Redström and his critique of user-centred design. Through observing how The User was defined and negotiated, the thesis contributes to a better understanding of the tensions that underlie interdisciplinary collaborations and articulates possible points of conflict. The results highlight how The User was shaped by a variety of discursive frames throughout the course of the GIFT design processes. Materially, the design and testing process was constrained by multiple factors including the institutional context of an EU project and contributed to how “users” were manifest and reached closure in testing processes. The User was further affected by the established structures it had to accommodate such as for example the logic of academic research and the logic of cultural heritage institutions. The thesis proposes that articulating and sensitising design teams to the inherent tensions between these dimensions provides a possible path towards navigating and potentially resolving some of them