Applying Axial Symmetries to Historical Silk Fabrics: SILKNOW's Virtual Loom

Symmetry is part of textile art in patterns and motifs that decorate fabrics, which are made by the interlacement of warp and wefts. Moreover, the 3D representation of fabrics have already been studied by some authors; however, they have not specifically dealt with preserving historical weaving techniques. In this paper, we present the SILKNOW's Virtual Loom, a tool intended to document, preserve and reproduce silk historical weaving techniques from the 15th to the 19th centuries. We focus on the symmetry function and its contribution to art history, textile conservation, and modern design. We analyzed 2028 records from Garin 1820 datasets¿a historical industry that still weaves with these techniques¿and we reconstructed some historical designs that presented different types of defects. For those images (including fabrics and drawings) that had a symmetrical axis, we applied the symmetry functionality allowing to reconstruct missing parts. Thanks to these results, we were able to verify the usefulness of the Virtual Loom for conservation, analysis and new interpretative advantages, thanks to symmetry analysis applied to historical fabrics

SPANISH RELIGIOUS TEXTILES FROM THE 18TH AND 19TH CENTURIES THE GARÍN CASE

Clothes and textiles make up a very relevant part or religious cultural heritage. This paper presents a selection of liturgical textiles from the 18th and 19th centuries. They were created by Garín, a Spanish factory still active today. The designs and weaving techniques employed in them have provided the starting point for a research project, SILKNOW, in operation between 2018 and 2021. It aims to apply cutting-edge computing technologies to textile heritage, including the religious and liturgical, and thus establish new historical and artistic connections. The research leading to these results is carried out within the SILKNOW project (¿Silk heritage in the Knowledge Society: from punched cards to big data, deep learning and visual/tangible simulations‟), which has received funding from the European Union‟s Horizon2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 769504

Design Archives: Sustainable Solutions for Young Designers in Valencia, Spain

Design education is practical and theoretical; however, it does not usually include the study of cultural heritage. Nonetheless, relations with academia have been strong since the 18th century, when the need to educate designers spread across the continent to improve design and make it competitive in the market. In this paper, we recover that spirit and act as mediators between heritage and young people to create links and preserve cultural heritage. A case study was conducted at the Public Valencian Design School with 31 product design students. The methodology applied was based on iterative processes that allowed students to discover design and silk heritage when they proposed innovative ways of approaching it. A qualitative survey was used to evaluate the case study. The results showed that students increased their appreciation for cultural heritage (by more than 90%) as well as their willingness to preserve it and reuse it in their future creations. Collaboration between cultural heritage and design might foster sustainable conservation and mark the future steps of ongoing collaboration

Weaving Words for Textile Museums: The development of the Linked SILKNOW Thesaurus

The cultural heritage domain in general and silk textiles, in particular, are characterized by large, rich and heterogeneous data sets. Silk heritage vocabulary comes from multiple sources that have been mixed up across time and space. This has led to the use of different terminology in specialized organizations in order to describe their artefacts. This makes data interoperability between independent catalogues very difficult. To address these issues, SILKNOW created a multilingual thesaurus related to silk textiles. It was carried out by experts in textile terminology and art historians and computationally implemented by experts in text mining, multi-/cross-linguality and semantic extraction from text. This paper presents the rationale behind the realization of this thesaurus

El hilo de la historia: del patrimonio mueble al intangible. Rescatando el patrimonio textil sedero

[EN] Silk heritage belongs to the so-called integral heritage type, which means that tangible and intangible elements can be found in one piece. Moreover, silk is a living heritage strongly connected with its community. It is paradigmatic case, where its intangible elements go from literature, to mulberry farming, or traditional weaving techniques. Also, activities surrounding silk trade have left an imprint on various cities in monuments and even marking their town planning. Nowadays, silk is a living heritage in various communities and constitutes an element of creativity that can be appreciated in the current fashion trends. This paper addresses the main results of the SILKNOW project, funded by the European Union within the framework of Horizon 2020, and will give value to this heritage by proposing the elaboration of a national plan that will guarantee the safeguarding of techniques and knowledge linked to weaving techniques, through oral memory and conservation, documentation and cataloging. Within this project, we seek to understand these techniques through technology in order to make this knowledge accessible, while promoting silk knowledge among society.[ES] El patrimonio de la seda constituye un tipo de patrimonio patrimonio integral, es decir, en él que se pueden encontrar elementos tangibles e intangibles además de ser un patrimonio vivo fuertemente conectado con su comunidad. Es además un caso paradigmático, ya que tiene asociados elementos inmateriales que van desde literatura, a la recogida de la morera, o las técnicas tradicionales de tejido. Además, el desarrollo de su actividad ha dejado una impronta en diversas ciudades con monumentos e incluso marca el urbanismo de las mismas. Es un patrimonio vivo presente en diversas comunidades y constituye un elemento de creatividad presente en los diseños más contemporáneos de la moda actual. En este artículo se abordan los principales resultados del proyecto SILKNOW, financiado por la Unión Europea en el marco de Horizonte 2020 y se da valor a este patrimonio proponiendo la elaboración de un plan nacional que garantizará la salvaguarda de técnicas y saberes ligados a las técnicas de tejido, a través de la memoria oral y los procesos de conservación, documentación y registro. Buscando la comprensión de esas técnicas a través de la tecnología para hacer ese conocimiento accesible, al tiempo que se potencia el conocimiento de la seda.Alba, E.; Gaitán, M.; León, A.; Sebastián, J. (2021). El hilo de la historia: del patrimonio mueble al intangible. Rescatando el patrimonio textil sedero. En I Simposio anual de Patrimonio Natural y Cultural ICOMOS España. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 95-102. https://doi.org/10.4995/icomos2019.2019.11669OCS9510

Estudio sobre la preocupación por la imagen corporal y la presencia de ideas de referencia : análisis en función del género

This research, which is explained below, is a contribution to a broader study on Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Specifically, we propound to demonstrate the close links that exist between concern for body image and the ideas of reference, as well as both variables in the gender. We will also study links with the age for going deeper into these concerns for body image. This study included 296 non-university people of Spanish nationality and aged between 18 and 65. These people filled out several questionnaires, and the information was analyzed by SPSS program in its last version. The results confirm that a significant correlation exists between the concern for body image , deas of reference and genderEl trabajo que se presenta a continuación constituye una aportación a un estudio más amplio sobre el Trastorno Dismórfico Corporal. Concretamente proponemos demostrar la estrecha relación existente entre la preocupación por la imagen corporal y las ideas de referencia, así como de ambas variables con el género. Para profundizar en las preocupaciones por la imagen corporal, estudiaremos su relación también con la edad. En el estudio participaron 296 sujetos no universitarios, de nacionalidad española y con edades comprendidas entre 18 y 65 años. Estos sujetos autocumplimentaron varios cuestionarios, y los datos obtenidos fueron analizados por el programa SPSS en su última versión. Los resultados confirman que existe una correlación significativa entre la preocupación por la imagen corporal, las ideas de referencia y el género

Palabras tejidas: método y uso de un tesauro multilingüe de la seda

The European silk heritage is an integral heritage that encompasses both tangible properties (looms, fabrics, threads, etc.) and an important linguistic intangible heritage. Its importance as a heritage is undoubted, but although silk has woven Europe and is still used in numerous contexts, traditional weaving is at risk due to the gradual loss of the artisans that safeguard the ancestral knowledge associated to it. Moreover, silk remains relevant to people who experience living, personal and social connections with this heritage, which is linked to so many life stories and collective narratives that it has generated a specific vocabulary. The way in which silk-related properties have been catalogued is very heterogeneous due to the lack of standardisation of the catalogues of the museums that hold them. As a result, the vocabulary of silk heritage comes from multiple sources that have been mixed over time and space, resulting in the interoperability of this data and catalogues being extremely complicated. To address these challenges, the SILKNOW project took on the challenge of creating a multilingual thesaurus that is the basis for other project tools, standardises the vocabulary of silk weaving, and rescues the intangible heritage associated with it. This paper presents the rationale behind the creation of this thesaurus and its relationship with the safeguarding of tangible and, above all, intangible heritage.El patrimonio europeo de la seda es un patrimonio integral que abarca tanto bienes materiales (telares, tejidos, hilos, etc.) como un importante patrimonio inmaterial lingüístico. Su importancia como patrimonio es indudable, pero aunque la seda ha tejido Europa y se sigue utilizando en numerosos contextos, la tejeduría tradicional está en riesgo por la pérdida gradual de artesanos que salvaguarden el conocimiento ancestral. Además, la seda sigue siendo relevante para las personas que experimentan conexiones vivas, personales y sociales con este patrimonio, el cual está vinculado a tantas historias de vida y relatos colectivos que ha generado numerosos vocablos propios. El modo en se han catalogado los bienes asociados a la seda es muy heterogénea debido a la falta de normalización de los catálogos de los museos que los custodian. Es por ello que el vocabulario del patrimonio de la seda procede de múltiples fuentes que se han mezclado a través del tiempo y el espacio, dando como resultado que la interoperabilidad de estos datos sea extremadamente complicada. Para abordar estos retos, el proyecto SILKNOW asumió el reto de crear un tesauro multilingüe que es la base de otras herramientas del proyecto, normaliza el vocabulario del tejido sedero y rescata el patrimonio inmaterial asociado a este. Este artículo presenta los fundamentos de la realización de este tesauro y su relación con la salvaguarda del patrimonio material y sobre todo, inmaterial

Recovering Sicilian Silk Heritage through Digital Technologies: The Case of Piraino's Collection

Textile conservation has given rise to small and medium-sized museums, usually with scarce resources. In Sicily, the little evidence that remains of silk production and opulent imports by the rich and powerful local aristocracy is kept in museums, parishes, and other cultural institutions. The documentation, dissemination, and enhancement of such a fragile heritage is today possible by means of technological tools that provide novel means to preserve, analyze, and exploit digital information. In this paper, we present some outcomes of the SILKNOW project, a project that applies computing research to the needs of diverse users (museums, educational institutions, the tourism industry, creative industries, media, etc.) and preserves the tangible and intangible heritage associated with silk. We show the methodology followed to build end users' needs into the Virtual Loom, a tool that deals with the 3D reconstruction of silk fabrics at the yarn level. We also provide a real example of how to integrate it at the museum level, specifically, at Piraino's Collection. The results demonstrate how small and medium-sized museums can access tools that will help them to carry out their daily tasks

SILKNOW, tejiendo el pasado hacia el futuro

El patrimonio cultural no se trata solo de bienes culturales tangibles, sino también de significados transmitidos de generación en generación que dan como resultado un sentido de pertenencia a la comunidad de la que son parte. El patrimonio de la seda va más allá de los tejidos en sí mismos, son catalizadores de cohesión social, desarrollo sostenible, creatividad, diseño y tecnología. Son el hilo conductor de una investigación conjunta que entreteje y difunde la historia y el patrimonio cultural europeo. SILKNOW como proyecto innovador está comprometido a la salvaguarda de estos bienes culturales utilizando tecnologías de última generación al servicio del patrimonio cultural. SILKNOW está tejiendo el pasado hacia el futuro

Towards the preservation and dissemination of historical silk weaving techniques in the digital era

Historical weaving techniques have evolved in time and space giving as result more or less fabrics with different aesthetical characteristics. These techniques were transferred along the main silk production centers, thanks to the European Silk Road and creating a common European Frame on themes and techniques. These had made it complicated to determine whether a fabric corresponds to one century or another. Moreover, in order to understand their creation, it is necessary to determine the number of weaves and interlacements that each textile has, therefore, mathematical models can be extracted from these layers. In this sense, three dimensional (3D) virtual representations of the internal structure of textiles are of interest for a variety of purposes related to fashion, industry, education or other areas. The aim of this paper is to propose a mathematical modelling of historical weaving techniques by means of matrices in order to be easily mapped to a virtual 3D representation. The work focuses on historical silk textiles, ranging from the 15th to the 19th centuries. We also propose a computer vision-based strategy to extract relevant information from digital imagery, by considering different types of images (textiles, technical drawings and macro images). The work here presented has been carried out in the scope of the SILKNOW project, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 769504. The results shown in the paper are preliminary and will be improved in the scope of the project.Historical weaving techniques have evolved in time and space giving as result more or less fabrics with different aesthetical characteristics. These techniques were transferred along the main silk production centers, thanks to the European Silk Road and creating a common European Frame on themes and techniques. These had made it complicated to determine whether a fabric corresponds to one century or another. Moreover, in order to understand their creation, it is necessary to determine the number of weaves and interlacements that each textile has, therefore, mathematical models can be extracted from these layers. In this sense, three dimensional (3D) virtual representations of the internal structure of textiles are of interest for a variety of purposes related to fashion, industry, education or other areas. The aim of this paper is to propose a mathematical modelling of historical weaving techniques by means of matrices in order to be easily mapped to a virtual 3D representation. The work focuses on historical silk textiles, ranging from the 15th to the 19th centuries. We also propose a computer vision-based strategy to extract relevant information from digital imagery, by considering different types of images (textiles, technical drawings and macro images). The work here presented has been carried out in the scope of the SILKNOW project, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 769504. The results shown in the paper are preliminary and will be improved in the scope of the project