29.05.204
Lab-Visit University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten 

In order to answer our research question, the OrDiV project has had to assemble a team of thinkers across sectors. Our transdisciplinary group is comprised of Art Historians, Cognitive Psychologists, Curators, and Digital Technologists. The partners in charge of producing, designing, and coding the virtual reality condition component is headed by Matthias Husinksy from the esteemed Department of Media and Digital Technologies at the University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten. Last week our three tech savvy collaborators, Matthias, Julian and Ramon hosted a hands-on meet and greet with the potential technology we will be using for the project. The St. Pölten team had previously scanned the exhibition room to create the VR twin simulation and brought us up to speed to the potentials and capacity their software might be able to provide for the study. As we tried on a myriad of headsets and stepped into virtual scenes, for those of us who are not frequent climbers of the VR landscapes, we leveraged a greater sense of what this condition might look like and feel like to our participants. What began as an informative site visit also ended up being a great team building activity. 

16.04.2024
Kick-Off Meeting at Belvedere

OrDiV’s national research partner, the Belvedere, has been a pioneer in sharing their collection in digital formats. Through their esteemed research center, this world class museum has provided an expansive overview of 800 years of art, film, music, and architecture on their website in a free, open, and linked access fashion. The Belvedere Research Center is headed by Christian Huemer, an art historian whose research focuses on the international art market, collecting patterns, French and Austrian Modernism, and digital art presentations. Along with Johanna Aufreiter, art historian and scientific project coordinator at the Belvedere Research Center, and Ellice Jachek, OrDiV’s project associate with a background in exhibition design, Huemer hosted the OrDiV project team at the Belvedere 21 for our kick-off-meeting.   

After the welcome by the project lead Hanna Brinkmann, Huemer provided an overview of the missions of the BRC as well as how their work is shaping ongoing discourse about the digitization of cultural heritage. Their cohort of art aficionados and scientists document, trace, index, and study Austrian art in an international context. In addition, their team has created innovative and exciting interactions to view artworks in augmented reality as well as through forensic imaging. Thus bridging the rich collections of the Belvedere and various external projects the Belvedere Research Center constitutes a hub where scientific research and museum practice merge. They essentially support our research aim opening their exhibition spaces to investigate alongside the museum’s visitors how the engagement with art can be experienced and perceived within the context of different media. In sum, our insightful kick-off-meeting at the Belvedere 21 offered us a beautiful view on our research project, compounded by the divergent perspectives that form our team.