Preserving Cultural Heritage in SL

8/3/2019 Preserving Cultural Heritage in SL

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Preserving Spiritual & Cultural Heritage with Traditional Artists In Second Life 1

DIGITALLY PRESERVING

SPIRITUAL & CULTURAL HERITAGE

WITH TRADITIONAL ARTISTS IN

SECOND LIFE

Tonietta A. Walters1,2 and Jennifer Saxton2

The Arts Office Net Inc., [email protected],2Miami Dade College,twalters, [email protected]

ABSTRACT:

The deeply experiential nature of nondual or ethno-indigenous

cultural and spiritual traditions may not easily convert to digital

form, constraining epistemic goals of preservation. Virtual world

technology, as a participatory tool that engages users, allows

for an immersive experience and the virtual world of Second

Life has emerged as a preferred tool for providing hands-on

experiential learning. Moreover, the nature of preserving

conceivably marginalized cultural information is predicated by

attention to various aesthetic underpinnings of these milieus

when designing associated virtual environments and the objects

within them. The projects adopt a straightforward participatorymodel where traditional artists or object-makers within these

cultures provide artistic material and collaboratively inform the

design process and thus augment epistemic aims of digitization.

This paper reports on the integrated praxis and theory across
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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topics in the digital humanities; underpinning interdisciplinaryprojects that aim to digitally preserve nondual spiritual and

ethno-indigenous culture in Second Life.

1. INTRODUCTION

In an era of trans-humanism and the impending singularity, it may

be overlooked that the deeply experiential nature of nondual or

ethno-indigenous spiritual traditions might not easily convert to

digital form, constraining practical and epistemic goals of

preservation. It becomes important to devise methods for the

appropriate assimilation of technology to accommodate this

potentially marginalized aesthetic milieu.

This paper outlines the theoretical and practical aspects of various

projects undertaken to either directly convey spiritual experience

through the work of traditional artists or attempt to catalog and

preserve spiritual and cultural heritage in the virtual world of

Second Life. (Table 1)

SECTION PROJECT TITLE

2. 1. 1.FLOW IN THE ZONE: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE INNEREXPERIENCE OF THE TRADITIONAL ARTIST

2. 3. 1.FLINDERS UNIVERSITY SOCIAL SCIENCES: PATHWAYS TO

WELLBEING PARTICIPATORY SOFTWARE DEMO

3. 1.CITY OF SUZANO EXHIBITION AT MIAMI DADE COLLEGEVIRTUAL MUSEUM IN SECOND LIFE

Table 1: Project List.


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2. BACKGROUND

Artists, in general, have the capability of tapping into a form of

nondual experience during some portions of the creative process

and are intrinsically motivated to:

1. express emotions and sensations that are akin to this typeof spiritual experience

2. use the creative process is a self-directed ritualistic avenuethat repeatedly evokes this type of experience

3. more clearly understand and express its aspects.Surely, there will be many people (artists included) who will have

large issue with these statements. However, there it is. Intrinsic

motivation does not necessarily coincide with conscious motivation

nor preclude that those conscious motivations may have been

confabulated in order to make the drive to create consistent with

the secular world.

2. 1. PRAXIS: THE SEER MODEL OF CREATIVITY

The experience of the artist within portions of the creative

process is closely related to mystical or nondual experience.

When making an art object the most productive and successful

moments are usually when the artist has been able to reach a

certain point of efficiency The Zone or an experience of super-

conscious flow. "The Zone" should be thought of as a place

rather than a state. It encompasses more than an emotional orpsychological state and has a palpable presence. For example,

there is a distinct feeling that happens upon returning home

from a trip. Recognition of The Zone is the same as the fleeting

thought when you finally sit in the car for the drive home from


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the airport or turn the key in your front door. You have beenhome since the plane landed, but it doesn't register in this

certain way until one of these moments. Home, or The Zone, is

a place where a person functions optimally, because of

familiarity or the sense of freedom within recognizable

constraints. In other words, certain things are allowed to drop

from conscious awareness, because an established pattern has

been set.The feeling of being in The Zone can only seem to be

described in opposites and in descriptions is analogous to a

mystical, nondual experience. A true description of this type of

awareness has eluded many this feeling of being at one with

something larger.

An art object is not only an expression of the individual artists

experience; it becomes a psychological "capture" of the moment

of expression including such glimpses of nonduality. By

analyzing artwork both during the process and upon completion

to learn about the underlying structure of the creative process,

the artwork becomes an extended memory aid that is relied on

to draw conclusions about the meaning of the experience of

expression itself. It is important that this "memory" remain as

accurate as possible and that chosen materials captured the

experience and maintained the integrity of the moment while

still conveying both the ephemeral and ethereal nature of amoment of experience or being.

The SEER [Self Extension and Experience Realization] Model of

Creativity is based on extensive creativity meta-research by

Richard Tabor Greene, Professor of Knowledge and Creativity at

Kwansei University in Japan. It is a synthesis of Self-Type 33:

Extended Self-Development and Mind Type 41: Experience

Realization Forms (Greene 2001). The SEER Model both

identifies a personal methodology in the phenomenological

investigation of inner experience and brackets highly subjective

portions within the creative process and aesthetic experience of

an artist such as The Zones super-conscious flow. A


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description of the SEER Model of Creativity is outlined asfollows:

1. The practicing artist should be at a level of practicethat:

a. is both self-initiated and goal directed,

b. includes set ideas or concepts to focus on for themaking of art.

2. The artwork is approached:

a. in a questioning manner that is of a personalnature

b. with an awareness of attempting to answerinternal questions caused by an encounter with

some aspect of Nondual experience.

3. The artist is engaged in a continuing process ofinvestigating the source and meaning of the tangible

objects produced including using them to objectively

analyze moments of the creative process that are deeply

subjective.

Developing an expertise or facility with metacognition, as is

needed for the SEER Model, is predetermined within the artmaking process itself.


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2. 1. 1. FLOW IN THE ZONE: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVEON THE INNER EXPERIENCE OF THE TRADITIONAL

ARTIST

Figure 1: Flow Exhibition.

Flow a smooth uninterrupted movement or progress

Zone a temporary state of heightened concentration that

enables peak performance

Flow in addition to the Merriam-Webster definition above is a

widely referenced concept characterized as a mental state of

operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or

she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full

involvement, and success in the process of the activity.

(Csikszentmihalyi 1996)

Art+Science France is a non-for-profit organization that aims to

facilitate dialogue between artists, scientists and educators who

are interested in the connections between art and cognitive

science. The Flow exhibition series is a program of Art+Science


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France that gives platform to art and artists using traditionalmedia in the investigation or simple expression of inner

experience within the creative process.

This exhibition in the series was realized at the Miami Dade

Virtual College Second Life Island, Display Room One. Nine

international contemporary fine artists contributed paintings,

drawings and sculpture to the virtual exhibition:

Pip Brant-USA

Alete Burg-USA

Alicia Falcone-Argentina

Luisa Mesa-Cuba

Jose Polet-Belgium

Policarpo Ribeiro-Brazil

Nathalie Sebregts-Netherlands

Ricardo Triana-Colombia

Tonietta Walters-Jamaica

2. 2. THEORY: KANTIAN AESTHETICS

An aspect of art as the medium for aesthetic experience is the

encounter with an underlying essential truth. Within the artists

aesthetic experience as part of the creative process there is

more often than not the experience of super-conscious flow

[See Section 2.1. for a description of The Zone].

The common usage of the term aesthetic experience is

generated from the activity of appreciation of an object. The


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aesthetic experience of the viewer is extrinsic to the objectitself; therefore it is necessary to make a distinction between

the viewers aesthetic experience and the artists experience.

To come to an understanding of the intrinsic purpose of an art

object one inevitably has to direct some questioning to the

object-maker. In Kantian Aesthetics the problem is not how

[art] is judged by a viewer, but how it is created. The solution

revolves around two new concepts: the genius and aesthetic

ideas. (Burnham 2005)

Figure 2: Kantian Free Harmony as a Nondual State.

Kant includes as a part of aesthetic experiencea mental state

similar to cognition called the free harmony of the imagination

and the understanding. And, an object that is able to occasion

such a state of free harmony is said to exhibit purposiveness

without purpose.(Rogerson 2008) The question becomes howthis natural purposiveness is to be explained. The only possible

account is that the appearance of purposiveness in nature is

conditioned by the supersensible realm underlying nature. But

this means that beauty is a kind of revelation of the hidden


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substrate of the world. (Burnham 2005) This translates to anencounter with the noumenal world through the aesthetic

experience which is a quasi-cognitivefree harmonystate of

perceptual ambiguity a glimpse of nonduality.

What genius does, Kant says, is to provide soul or spirit to

what would otherwise be uninspired. Genius inspires art

works gives them spirit and does so by linking the work of

art to what Kant will call aesthetic ideas ... which [are] apresentation of the imagination to which no thought is

adequate. (Burnham 2005) These nondual experiences are

indescribable using common language or, more accurately,

understanding cannot be reached through language alone. A

similar or familiar experience has to be evoked in the viewer.

Art objects themselves, by bringing into being an overwhelming

experience in the viewer, inherently contribute to the idea of

the artist as divine messenger or divinely inspired. This basic

process of appreciation of the object, leading to a type of

overwhelming experience is in keeping with the idea of the

ineffable nature of both religious and aesthetic experience. In

other words, the object created to express an experience

beyond words leads to an experience or psychological state that

is in itself indescribable.

In the judgment of the beautiful, we had a [free]

harmony between the imagination and the

understanding, such that each furthered the extension

of the other. a harmony which happens on the

experiencing of a beautiful form that itself is the

expression of something yet higher but that cannot in

any other way be expressed. (The notion of expression

is important: what Kant is describing is an aesthetic

process, rather than a process of understanding

something with concepts, and then communicating that

understanding.) Inspired fine art is an expression of

the state of mind which is generated by an aesthetic


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idea. (Burnham 2005)

Fine artists express this aesthetic idea and make it extensible

through:

1. repeatedly [and ritualistically] revisiting the experiencewithin the creative process in order to

2. refine and develop a form of expertise in theexpression of the aesthetic idea, therefore

3. eliciting [extending] this kind of experience to the artviewer.

Adopting this nondual interpretation within Kantian aesthetics

affords a definitive conceptual grounding for the SEER Model of

Creative Practice [Section 2. 1.] as a process that aids in

investigating and creatively expressing altered states of

consciousness, specifically nondual experience.

2. 3. SYNTHESIS: PARTICIPATORY MODEL

The nature of preserving conceivably marginalized cultural

information is predicated by attention to the artistic

underpinnings when designing associated virtual environments

and the objects within them. However, creativity seems to be

an innate ability outside of description or effective analysis.

Moreover, the creative process is a troubling enigma,

notoriously difficult to pin down and understand, even for those

who are recognized as creative individuals. In order to be

mindful of the intricacies of the creative process and creative

personality, these projects adopt a straightforward participatory

model where traditional artists or object-makers work

collaboratively with the virtual world designer.


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The participating artist gives an oral or written presentation ofhis intentions and the artwork, including the

ideas/processes/chosen imagery found in the work, a self-

report of success or failure at correlating his intentions to his

representations and possible changes or intended future

directions. This collaborative process is an inter-subjective

mirror of the steps that are involved in internal cognitive

monitoring of the designer during the creative process and

engenders a deeper understanding of the traditional artists

intentions; to subsequently inform the digital reinterpretation of

the artwork, the related environment and exhibition design.

2. 3. 1. FLINDERS UNIVERSITY SOCIAL SCIENCES:

PATHWAYS TO WELLBEING PARTICIPATORY SOFTWARE

DEMO

The Flinders University project is funded by an Australian Research

Council Linkage Grant. It is a social inclusion project targeted to

Aboriginal users of social service agencies.

Figure 3: Pathways to Wellbeing Work Station.

Project Team

Co-researchers at Neporendi,


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Jon Deakin - PhD Student, Governance & PublicManagement

Dr Denise DeVries Researcher, informatics andengineering.

Assoc Prof Janet McIntyre - Chief investigator, policy &management, critical systemic approach.

Assoc Prof Doug Morgan - Chief investigator, cultural studiesand Aboriginality

Kim ODonnell, mentor at CRCAH, Flinders University Prof Anne Roche - Chief investigator, public health Prof John Roddick - Chief investigator. Informatics and

engineering

Prof Tonietta Walters, Graphics and Second Life designer Bevin Wilson Mentor at Yunggorendi

Project Description

Demonstration of the Pathways to Wellbeing software involves

two people sitting alongside each other while using the software

on a computer screen in an art gallery setting located on the

Flinders Island. The demonstration Second Life must be

recorded and linked to the Pathways to Wellbeing website as

per the slides.

Each registrant must have an avatar in order to book a time to

watch a real time demonstration. Registrants need to nominate

if they wish to try out the software. Time will be allocated for

people to try out the software after the demonstration.

Registrants have the option of providing some artwork to post

in the gallery of what wellbeing means to them.


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3. SECOND LIFE AS DIGITAL HUMANITIES

The choice of an installation or assemblage of objects is meant to

emphasize a feeling of place. In creating a "space", the viewer is

given an area to "approach". This will mirror the experience of

creating; where the mental gaze is fixed on a goal and this goal

space is something to work toward. This way, the viewer processesinformation from the reference point of their own experience -

translating from a visceral or aesthetic response to intellectual

understanding. In Second Life, where both 2-dimensonal and 3-

dimensional artworks can be displayed as reinterpretations of real

life creations, the concept of installation is exponentially extended

by the possibility of informational augmentation. Substantiating

speculative theory in aesthetics and philosophy of mind

necessitates ensuring both reliability and efficiency in

information processing, documentation and preservation

including broadening the network of information from individual

subjective experience to a global sampling of artists and

cultures.

Digital Humanities according to the National Endowment for the

Humanities is an umbrella term for a number of different

activities that surround technology and humanities scholarship

where most of these digital humanities activities involve

collections of cultural heritage materials, which are one of the

primary objects of study for researchers across all humanities

disciplines. (Bobley 2008) Current virtual world technology is

an essential component for solving the problem of appropriate

levels of interaction. While there is the issue that3D worlds

are clearly not appropriate architectures for disseminating largeamount of information, as neither lectures nor expansive

documents work well with new means of communication. These

limitations ironically encouraged creative cooperation and

interaction (Di Blas, Paolini and Hazan 2003)


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Because of international availability, Second Life allows for amore diverse participation of artists using low-techtraditional

media to contribute and collaborate as in the Flow Exhibition

[Section 2. 1. 1.]. The viewerexperiences an immersive

environment and a sense of spatial interactivity with the

artworks as in a virtual reality game. Gaming as social

undertaking also informs the usability of Second Life for more

serious pursuits. The social nature of Second Life is a critical

component of understanding what it is and how it can, and

should, be used. (Urban et al 2007)

The participatory model [Section 2.3] combines aspects of both

gallery (the presenting of artists) and museum (the presenting

of objects) processes for a more comprehensive gathering of

information and cultural knowledge.The development of

synchronous and social activities, such as lectures, collaborative

builds, and accepting feedback from visitors, is a hallmark of SL

museums. (Urban et al 2007) The layering of methods in

creating a virtual environment for preservation enables the

possibility of dialogue combining the methodology of library

sciences and artistic expertise in experiences involving a deep

subjectivity. This opens up additional possibilities for fruitful

inter-subjective and/or experimental approaches.

3. 1. CITY OF SUZANO EXHIBITIONAT MIAMI DADE

COLLEGE VIRTUAL MUSEUM IN SECOND LIFE

The Office of Cultural and Architectural Heritage for the City of

Suzano in the Alto Tite Region of Sao Paolo, Brazil wants to

preserve the cultural heritage of their diverse peoples - including

large Japanese and Afro-Brazilian populations. They envision a

project of digital preservation that includes a virtual reality

component. The Arts Office Net, Inc. in the US and the artists of

The Arts Office Brazil in Suzano will work with Miami Dade College


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(MDC) to create a virtual world exhibition at the MDC VirtualMuseum in Second Life.

Figure 4: Miami Dade College Virtual Museum.

The MDC Virtual Museum will be housed in a building that

combines aspects of real world brick and mortar spaces withphysically unrealizable design elements, thereby creating an

environment that is at once familiar and fantastic. As a familiar

space, the museum will allow visitors to engage inritual(Duncan

1995) not in the religious sense, but in terms of behaviors

traditionally associated with cultural institutions, i.e. quiet

contemplation and academic inquiry. As an imaginative space, the

museum will provide an environment uniquely conducive to creative

pursuits, and in which direct interaction between visitor and object

is encouraged and facilitated. This type of engagement is one of

three visit-rituals that define museum ecology (Bell 2002), the other

two being liminality and sociality. The ability to socialize is a


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fundamental component of virtual worlds. Second Life is very mucha social network, in which residents have the freedom to

represent themselves exactly as they wish in terms of physical

appearance, and where interaction with strangers is not only

common and acceptable, but is often the expected behavior.

3. 1. 1. EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

The MDC Virtual Museum will provide unique educational

opportunities for students and researchers. Faculty from a variety

of disciplines may be inspired to design exhibition-based curriculum

that incorporates one or more of the Colleges General Education

Learning Outcomes, a set of ten learning goals that emphasize the

lifelong skills needed to be successful in work and life and to

participate in our society as a global citizen. The museum will

serve as an additional course writing assignment for the Philosophy

of Religion and Philosophy of Art sections of an Introduction to

Philosophy course. A portion of the museum project also includes a

student gallery to offer the students from the MDC Computer Arts &

Animation program the opportunity for hands-on extra-credit

assignments of creating additional art objects and spiritual rituals

within the virtual museum setting including interactive reference

material. Specific learning outcomes that apply to the City ofSuzano exhibition include:

1. Exhibition Designa. Within the 3D virtual environment, design students

learn to visually & spatially organizing objects for

maximum interactivity.

b. The humanities course will be enriched by theoptimal visually and spatially designed immersive

environment.

2. Digital Cataloguing


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a.

Design students learn the process of embeddingreference material within the virtual objects and to

create graphic interactive displays.

b. Humanities students will benefit from having thecombination of visual and textual reference.

3. Cross Cultural Sensitivitya. Design students create objects and environments to

represent a specific culture.

b. Humanities students will be exposed to immersiverepresentations of other cultures.

3. 1. 2. INTERPRETIVE/REFERENCE MATERIALS

Interpretive materials that typically accompany museum objects can

be delivered to the virtual visitor in a variety of ways, incorporating

interactive access to a variety of information resources.

Figure 5: Artist Information Board.


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These materials, embedded in or near the images and objects, mayinclude:

1. Documentary and multimedia artistic video of specificcultural and/or spiritual rituals.

2. Commentary/analysis of the artwork by course instructorsor other authoritative voices.

3. Documentary video of the artist at work.4. Primary source material, such as artist narratives or

interviews from the participatory collaboration process.

5. An image gallery of additional real world works by the artist,and/or similar works by other artists, possibly representing

other cultures, time periods, etc.

6. Questions for visitors to consider when viewing individualworks or the exhibition as a whole.

7. Hyperlinks to related locations within Second Life to whichvisitors may teleport.

8. Hyperlinked bibliography or virtual reference shelf providingpoint-of-need access to relevant library holdings available inelectronic format.

9. Point-of-need access (via embedded widget) to Ask-a-Librarian, a joint project of the Tampa Bay Library

Consortium and Floridas College Center for Library

Automation, which provides virtual reference assistance via

live chat or email.


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Figure 6: Notecard giver.

The listed interpretative and reference materials, including topical

menus with pre-recorded responses from which the visitor may

interactively select, would be delivered through various applications

and options:

1. Text-based note-card2. HUD (Heads-up Display) attachments3. Greeting Bot (human like automated information kiosks)4. Looping slideshow display, or other multi-media5. Future possibilities include the incorporation of augmented

reality mobile technologies such as QR codes, which are

barcodes that can be scanned by camera phones and

smartphones, allowing a visitor to collect information about

the object with a hand-held device.


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The virtual visitor is afforded the opportunity to interact with objectsin a manner only possible within a virtual environment including the

ability to rotate a three-dimensional work, to immerse oneself in a

work with Second Lifes mouseview feature, or to participate in a

spontaneous or scheduled real-time discussion with other museum

visitors in different parts of the world.

The attention to theoretical and practical groundwork of preserving

spiritual and cultural heritage as outlined throughout provides anintegrated methodology for virtual world assimilations of real world

concepts; therefore the virtual visitor has the ability to manipulate

these resources to meet personal preferences to information

processing, thus bolstering comprehensive epistemic objectives.


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REFERENCES:Bell (2002) Making sense of museums: The museum as cultural ecology.

Intel Corporation 1999-2002.

Bobley (2008) Why the Digital Humanities? Presentation to the National

Council on Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, July 24.

Burnham (2005) Kants Aesthetics, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,June 30.

Csikszentmihalyi (1996) Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery

and Invention, HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York, NY, USA.

Duncan (1995) Civilizing rituals: inside public art museums, Routledge, New

York, NY, USA.

Di Blas, Paolini and Hazan (2003) The SEE Experience: Edutainment in 3DVirtual Worlds, Museums and the Web 2003, Charlotte, NC, USA, March 19-

22.

Greene (2001) A Model of 42 Models of Creativity, School of Policy Studies,

Kwansei Gakuin University, Sanda, Japan.

Rogerson (2008) The Problem of Free Harmony in Kant's Aesthetics, State

University of New York Press, Albany, NY USA

Urban et al. (2007) A Second Life for Your Museum: 3D Multi-User Virtual

Environments and Museums, in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.). Museums

and the Web 2007, San Francisco, CA, USA, April 11-14.

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Preserving Cultural Heritage in SL