Museums of the virtual future

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Museums of the virtual
future
Marie-Madeleine Martinet
marie-madeleine.martinet@paris-sorbonne.fr
Department of English, Université Paris IV-
Sorbonne, France
Liliane Gallet-Blanchard
liliane.gallet-blanchard@paris-sorbonne.fr
Department of International Business and
Languages, Université Paris IV-Sorbonne,
France
The poster will argue that a retrospective
museum-like exhibition of digital media leads
to further developments in the field of
‘visualisation’: the study of the past offers
new opportunities to emerging technologies.
The poster is based on an exhibition entitled
‘Is the virtual real?’ which took place at
the University of Paris-Sorbonne in October
2009, organized by the Research Centre CATI
(Cultures Anglophones et Technologies de l’
Information
http://www.cati.paris-sorbonne.
fr
), and on the work in progress of the digital
preservation of the exhibition.
It will be supported by computer
demonstrations showing 1) the time-perspective
issues in a retrospect on the history of Virtual
Reality: examples of the variety of the original
documents 2) the interaction between different
areas of expertise in IT related to visualisation,
and between history and IT practice, during the
exhibition 3) the preservation of the exhibition
on digital records as a source of new projects.
1. A museum display on the
history of virtual reality: from
simulation to image
1.1. From the past to the present:
bringing precursors together
A retrospect in a museum of science will have
to show that present-day IT applications are a
convergence of many technologies of the past,
eventually leading to simulation.
The first micro of the 1970s, the Micral N
(1973) was made for a laboratory in agronomy
studying evaporation phenomena. Still earlier,
an analogue machine dating back to the
1960s, the EAI 580 (1963), before the digital
age, was used to calculate possible options
and variations for industrial processes such
as crane counterweights and plane landing
without visibility; it was later used in research
laboratories. The idea of ‘simulation’ existed
long before it converged with digital technology,
which in early days lacked the necessary
computing power, and took over only when
its computing speed made it appropriate for
simulation. Image or simulation technologies
were first distinct from computing, and a
retrospect has to show the separate strands.
1.2. From the future to the past: VR
and interactivity
The present computing power gives a new
approach to history, by allowing us to
‘experiment’ with the past. A hypothesis on the
construction of the Egyptian pyramid can be
tested with a CAD programme by an architect –
a version of a present-day approach to industrial
history where the expertise of professionals is
required to assess the plausibility of hypotheses
concerning industrial processes of the past.
VR programmes meant to reconstruct the
architecture of past centuries – Italian
Renaissance buildings or the Georgian city
of Bath – use the same CAD tools as those
employed nowadays in architects’ practices to
plan for future buildings. A case in point is the
Renaissance theatre which was published as a
woodcut in a 16th century book, then, thanks to
present-day architectural software, became a 3D
virtual model, which in turn served as a plan to
build a real wooden model; passing from 2D to
3D enables the viewer to visualize the gradual
distortion of the stage set as the spectators sit
farther from the seat of honour.
The experimental approach also concerns the
public, who can navigate interactively. Examples
of games exemplify the exchange between
entertainment and professional simulation,
such as flight simulators which may be used
for both; and game engines may be used for
architectural or historical simulations.

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1.3. Visualisation between image and
IT
3D technology, interpretation and
practice
Technical practice gives a better understanding
of an art. The visitors in the exhibition
could experiment the creation of 3D graphics
themselves on a computer at their disposal:
practice on present-day software enables the
visitors to visualize the interaction between
geometry, technology and aesthetics that have
made the history of VR – and of architecture.
They experience a new view of art history,
starting from cylinders and half-spheres to
produce an image of Classical rotundas with
circular colonnades and domes.
Various modes of presentation contextualize
this combination of VR programmes running
on machines, both professional finished projects
and visitors’ experiments: they need to be
supported by explanatory panels on the history
and practice of CAD and VR, placing it in
a historical context – 3D modelling dating
back to Renaissance perspective. The panels
also have to explain the main notions of
3D graphics: the creation of primitive forms
associating geometry and art, the use of textures,
lighting and perspective through the ‘camera
eye’, and eventually animation. They show how
the basic techniques of geometrical coordinates
experimented by the visitors underlie, after
much elaboration, the artistic finished products
of VR that they can admire in the exhibition.
Virtual worlds such as Second Life, where
the computing power and network capabilities
required can be used for artistic purposes
such as a live jazz performance broadcast
internationally, also exemplify the interactive
possibilities of VR.
Digital image aesthetics and the
historical perspective
Films on the history of VR are shown, and here
again media technology has to be harnessed
so as to suggest the historical perspective,
based on the practices of digital visualisation
aesthetics; this involves cooperation between
historians of IT and digital media technicians.
Documentaries dating back to the early 1990
differ in pixel definition from cutting-edge
trailers of new programmes, yet they have to
appear on the same screen; videos on VR
in medicine and videos on architecture are
focused differently. The resulting films have to
show both the similarity in techniques and the
differences in purpose between documentaries
in these various areas. A solution is to present
the early films in a smaller format which makes
pixelisation less visible, and surround them with
a frame to recover the format of the larger films;
the frame effect will in addition give them an
old-fashioned air which will suggest the time
perspective.
The museology of IT
The layout of the exhibition is meant to relate the
various IT programmes presented. An option
was to take advantage of the exhibition space
– in our case, a linear two-nave 15th century
building, in which a circuit was organized
so as to trace the history of VR from its
beginning to present-day supercomputers. The

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lighting is also of great importance, implying
cooperation between the electricians specialised
in museology and the historians of IT who are
responsible for the exhibits, who need to learn
to understand one another’s requirements so
that the exhibition space is equipped and lit in
order to throw into relief working machinery
(not static objects as in other exhibitions).
Preservation for the future: augmented
reality
An exhibition on simulation takes advantage
of IT technologies, and in return it gives new
options for developing these technologies.
VR about VR
Records of the exhibition will be preserved
as ‘augmented reality’, a project which will
maintain a permanent record of the exhibition.
The architectural setting of the exhibition is
suited to VR, so that the result will be the
history of VR within a VR model. A narrative
structure will have to be combined with a
virtual spatial environment. The project is thus
a contribution to theories on the structure of
digital information.
Records for preservation
While the exhibition was on, records were
made: photos, films of the lectures, which
will be integrated with the documents shown,
originally in several formats. The recording of
the exhibition in progress for future VR use was
part of the sessions themselves.
Visualisation thus combines aesthetic and
technical issues at several levels. The poster with
give images for each point; the several types
of computer programmes presented with it will
allow the conference delegates to experiment on
demos of work in progress as well as see views of
the exhibits at different scales.
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