Bringing the Tangible into the Virtual: Preserving human-silkworm collaboration

The connotation of the term ‘virtual cultural heritage (VCH)’ in Hong Kong (HK) tends to refer to virtual reality experiences that replicate physical sites as a form of digital representation and preservation. This raises the question as to whether there are wider and more creative potentialities that are yet to be explored for VCH by HK researchers. To address this question, the authors use Chinese bio-artist Liang Shaoji’s collaboration with silkworms in making sculptural installations as a case study for seeking a more holistic approach to virtualisation that both preserves and presents their trans-species practice. Additional benefits include increased accessibility and dissemination for an ever-changing experience, which would help artist and viewers alike. The particular challenges brought by Liang and the silkworms’ art projects lie in two main factors: the ephemeral and meditative ambience dedicated to Daoist philosophical concepts and the erratic and growing traits of some artworks along the time. In regard to the latter trait, certain works constantly change materially and biologically, such as the yellowing process of the silk spun or the lifespan of the species itself including cocooning, egging and urinating. On the other hand, the audience’s on-site space-specific and multi-sensuous experiences with the art projects, such as changes in the works’ appearance depending on viewer interactions and sensations beyond vision and hearing, are also an integral part of viewing this artistic transformation of a cultural heritage practice that is worth translating into a virtual context. We use a combination of data curation, archival science and digital humanities strategies to propose a model that can be used for Liang’s art practice. One author is an anthropologist working directly with Liang; the other is a hybrid artist-archivist-technologist. Through this analysis, the authors plan to apply the resulting process for proposing a VCH experience based on Liang’s work to other bio-artists incorporating Asian religious or philosophical ideas. This paper focuses mainly on the analysis and design required to create such a virtual framework and considerations that should be made for the unique needs of such artists.

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

Eugenia S. Kim

Feixuan Xu

Conference

Publication date: July 2019

Publication date (Print): July 2019

Pages: 256-263

Affiliations

[0001]School of Creative Media

City University of Hong Kong

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/EVA2019.49

SO-VID: 422e28e7-0993-467a-a6c0-6489e346a925

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Proceedings of EVA London 2019

Conference acronym: EVA 2019

Conference number:

Conference location: London, UK

Conference date: 8 - 11 July 2019

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Electronic Visualisation and the Arts

History

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1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/EVA2019.49

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

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Comments

Comment on this article

[1] J. Bennett 2010 Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things Duke University Press Durham

[2] Daoist Digital Museum 2016 http://dao.crs.cuhk.edu.hk/digitalmuseum/CH/ retrieved 16 March 2019 )

[3] Data Curation Profiles Data Curation Profiles: Overview http://www.datacurationprofiles.org retrieved 16 March 2019 )

[4] DARIAH-EU 2017 Heritage Data Reuse Charter https://www.dariah.eu/tools-services/data-re-use/ retrieved 16 March 2019 )

[5] T. J. Demos 2016 Decolonizing Nature: Contemporary Art and the Politics of Ecology Sternberg Press Berlin

[6] A. DewdneyP. Ride 2014 The Digital Media Handbook Routledge London

[7] Duke University 2017 Duke Digital Humanities Initiative https://digitalhumanities.duke.edu/vardhi retrieved 16 March 2019 )

[8] Future Memory Foundation 2018 The Times of Israel: At Westerbork, virtual reality simulations http://www.futurememoryfoundation.org/?p=216 retrieved 16 March 2019 )

[9] D. J. Haraway 2008 When Species Meet University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis

[10] S. KenderdineL. K. ChanJ. Shaw 2014 Pure Land: Futures for Embodied Museography Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage 7 2 1 15

[11] S.E. KirkseyS. Helmreich 2010 The Emergence of Multispecies Ethnography Cultural Anthropology 25 4 545 576

[12] C. Lai 2016 General Research Fund 14652616: Digital Ritual Archive of Chinese Temples in Hong Kong: Study of Multi-dimensional Ritual Processes https://cerg1.ugc.edu.hk/cergprod/scrrm00542.isp?proj_id=14652616&oldproj_id=16191616&proj_title=&isname=Lai&ioname=&institution=&subiect=&pages=1&year=2016&theSubmit=14652616 retrieved 16 March 2019 )

[13] B. Latour 2017 Facing Gaia: A New Enquiry into Natural Religion Polity Press Cambridge

[14] T. Morton 2007 Ecology without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics Harvard University Press Cambridge

[15] North Carolina State University Libraries and College of Humanities and Social Sciences 2017 Virtual Martin Luther King, Jr. Project http://vmlk.chass.ncsu.edu/ retrieved 16 March 2019 )

[16] S. SchreibmanR. G. SiemensJ. Unsworth 2016 A New Companion to Digital Humanities John Wiley & Sons Chichester

[17] J. Shaw 2017 Pure Land AR https://www.ieffreyshawcompendium.com/portfolio/pure-land-ar/ retrieved 16 March 2019 )

[18] F. Stracey 2009 Bio-art: The Ethics Behind the Aesthetics Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology 10 7 496 500

[19] United Nation Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage http://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/ retrieved 16 March 2019 )

[20] United Nation Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 2003 Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=17721&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html retrieved 16 March 2019 )

[21] United Nation Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 2011 What is Intangible Cultural Heritage? https://ich.unesco.org/en/what-is-intangible-heritage-00003 retrieved 16 March 2019 )

[22] United Nation Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 2019 Illicit Trafficking of Cultural Property http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/illicit-trafficking-of-cultural-property/unesco-database-of-national-cultural-heritage-laws/frequently-asked-questions/definition-of-the-cultural-heritage/ retrieved 16 March 2019 )

[23] University of California Los Angeles Experiential Technologies Center 2017 Humanities Virtual Worlds Consortium http://virtualworlds.etc.ucla.edu/ retrieved 16 March 2019 )

[24] N.S. Vaage 2016 What Ethics for Bioart? NanoEthics 10 1 87 104

[25] L. Weintraub 2012 To Life!: Eco Art in Pursuit of a Sustainable Planet University of California Press Ewing

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