Etched in the Memory.

Alan Forster, Samantha Vettese-Forster and John Borland explore the cultural value of preserving historic graffiti

Etched in the Memory.

Alan Forster, Samantha Vettese-Forster and John Borland explore the cultural value of preserving historic graffiti

Making Tourist Experiences Through Personalisable 3D Printed Souvenirs

Gift shops are common in most museums and galleries that provide visitors with shopping experiences as well as the opportunity to transform their intangible experience of the visit to a tangible memory through the purchase of a souvenir. It can also often be shown that the souvenirs stocked within these gift shops are 'inauthentic' and 'commodified products'. This can detach the viewer from engagement with the actual heritage experience. However, technological innovations in design and personalization of tourist souvenirs, through 3D printing, offer opportunities to escape the serial reproduction of culture through creative processes that engage the visitor in the creation of meaning. Through this personal engagement in the production of the souvenir, visitors may assign more emotional value to the customized souvenirs.This AHRC funded pilot project offers an alternative approach to the contemporary heritage souvenir experience. It proposed a range of prototypical 3D printed products, based on scanned in versions of artefacts within museums, galleries and heritage sites, in this case in collaboration with Historic Scotland. These were produced in-situ at Stirling Castle, with the intention that they could also be made by manufacturing remotely in the tourists nearest local 3D printing facility.This paper will disseminate the outcomes of this project, including analysis of qualitative and quantitative data from observations of tourist engagement with the 3D printing process, the aesthetic appeal and commercial impact of the 3D printed souvenir and the subsequent analysis of the relationship between the tourist and heritage location

Making Tourist Experiences Through Personalisable 3D Printed Souvenirs

Gift shops are common in most museums and galleries that provide visitors with shopping experiences as well as the opportunity to transform their intangible experience of the visit to a tangible memory through the purchase of a souvenir. It can also often be shown that the souvenirs stocked within these gift shops are 'inauthentic' and 'commodified products'. This can detach the viewer from engagement with the actual heritage experience. However, technological innovations in design and personalization of tourist souvenirs, through 3D printing, offer opportunities to escape the serial reproduction of culture through creative processes that engage the visitor in the creation of meaning. Through this personal engagement in the production of the souvenir, visitors may assign more emotional value to the customized souvenirs.This AHRC funded pilot project offers an alternative approach to the contemporary heritage souvenir experience. It proposed a range of prototypical 3D printed products, based on scanned in versions of artefacts within museums, galleries and heritage sites, in this case in collaboration with Historic Scotland. These were produced in-situ at Stirling Castle, with the intention that they could also be made by manufacturing remotely in the tourists nearest local 3D printing facility.This paper will disseminate the outcomes of this project, including analysis of qualitative and quantitative data from observations of tourist engagement with the 3D printing process, the aesthetic appeal and commercial impact of the 3D printed souvenir and the subsequent analysis of the relationship between the tourist and heritage location

Western and Eastern building conservation philosophies: perspectives on permanence and impermanence

In this conceptual paper, we illuminate Western building conservation philosophy practice with insights into Eastern conservation philosophy and associated aesthetic understanding. We frame dialogue recognising individual and societal perspectives on treatments to buildings that attempt to attain ‘permanence’ or ‘impermanence’ in form, fabric, and artefact. Although not expressly sharing origins, Eastern and Western conservation philosophies practically yield commensurate or quasi approaches in intervention. These similarities have not been notably articulated before, and reveal meaningful insights for decision heuristics and guidance fundamental for repair scheme design and intervention. Western, pattern-based views relating to philosophical reasons around the impossibility of perfection, or ‘correctness’ in physical building form resonate with Eastern views supported by Kiku Kiwari. Moreover, universality in acceptance of Western Patina and Eastern Wabi-Sabi, and Eastern Kintsugi and Western legible fabric repair convey overt signals of philosophies beyond technical performance. Moreover, we find Western bias towards ‘tangibility’, and greater appreciation of ‘intangibility’ in Eastern approaches that are culturally enriching and go beyond mere retention of fabric and architectural form, linking building memory with territory. We suggest potential cross-fertilisation of thinking to create an environment of greater cultural understanding of the motives, thoughts and practices in East and West

3D Printable Recycled Textiles: Material Innovation and a Resurrection of the Forgotten “shoddy” Industry

This paper will disseminate an interdisciplinary project, undertaken at Edinburgh Napier University between the Design and Advanced Materials. Several 3D printable materials are commercially available that use recycled material, including post consumer PET bottles and wood, but none that incorporate textiles. This project was funded by the Textiles Future Forum in collaboration with four Scottish textile companies who provided “waste” textiles (wool, cashmere and leather), to be used in this way. In the cases of the wool and cashmere, this is predominantly selvedge waste from the looms and knitting machines, unusable scraps and fluff swept up from under the machinery. The leather was recycled from airplane seats, returned to the manufacturers for disposal. The paper will outline the relationship between 3D printing and the textile and fashion industries at this time and the beneficial traits of 3D printing technology, the historical context of the project, particularly the advent of “shoddy”, a now seldom used material with many extremely similar traits to this projects inception, how these historical processes have common characteristics with the procedures used in this project, a brief outline of how the 3D printable materials were created and an evaluation of the embodiment of the narrative of Scottish tradition and “authenticity” in the materials

The Ballets Russes connection with fashion

This paper examines the influence that the costume designers of the Ballets Russes, many of whom were important artists from significant art movements of the day, had on contemporaneous fashion. It looks at why in particular the 'Ballets Russes' artists Leon Bakst and Natalia Goncharova went on to involve themselves in actual fashion production and the similarities between their work and the fashion designers producing work at the same time, principally Paul Poiret, Mariano Fortuny and Coco Chanel. Overall, this paper investigates the significance of the cultural times and of the distinct characteristics of the separate art forms, that may have encouraged avant-garde art and fashion to crossover and collaborate so unreservedly

Connections between Modern and Postmodern art and fashion.

This paper undertakes to construe the affinities and divergences in the genres of art and fashion throughout the 20th century through the use of particular visual and theoretical examples, examined at greater length in a more extensive study of ‘The relationship between the artist and the fashion designer in the twentieth century’ (Vettese, 2005). Examination of the 20th century has revealed two particular periods – ‘Modernism’ and ‘Postmodernism’ – that were evident and fitting to this analysis. The research is a summation of these findings, where the differences and affinities in the mechanisms of 20th century art and fashion, including imposing messages and innovation in Modernism and the mixed messages, recycling and commercial aspects of Postmodernism, are disseminated

A visual and contextual comparative study of the work of Picasso and Chanel towards an understanding of the overlaps between Modern Art and Fashion

From the beginning of the twentieth century, ``Modernism`` impacted and transformed art and clothing. Pablo Picasso and Gabrielle ``Coco`` Chanel were two of the most central characters in Modernism working simultaneously in their disciplines. Picasso`s innovations, particularly in abstract art and Chanel`s fashion designs, that dramatically departed from the previous corseted and highly deco-rative styles, were so significant that they have left an influence on contemporary art and fashion. This study will compare their visual works and documented evidence of their motivations, within the context of their cultural backgrounds, to reveal meaning in the occurrences of overlaps. This approach has ex-amined the historical, cultural background of the artist and designer`s environment from different per-spectives, adding to previous research in this area. Through this research, outcomes of the analysis have shown similarities and divergences in the wider genres of art and fashion and the practice of the artist and fashion designer. The reference list to this text, used in the survey, gives a comprehensive overview of pertinent publications disseminating Picasso and Chanel`s visual works, oral perspectives and cultural impact