IIIT Hyderabad Publications |
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Cultural objects : an inquiry into embedded storiesAuthor: Priyanka Suresh Date: 2018-01-02 Report no: IIIT/TH/2018/2 Advisor:Navjyoti Singh AbstractCultural objects are highly interpretive and complex in nature. Though technological advancements have made it possible to digitize and preserve knowledge of cultural value, capturing details of such objects in-situ has rarely been explored. In this thesis, we develop a platform called Curarium for indepth exploration of cultural collections, within and outside a museum setting. A focus group of 17 researchers gathered cultural collections on a trip to Odisha. The collections contain information pertaining to Pattachitra paintings, Gotipua performances, sustainable crafts, museum objects and processions. The data-sets are unique in nature and content, as they provide for an interplay between different kinds of objects. In this thesis, we examine the cultural value in objects unexplored before - like processions, and what they comprise. To accommodate the different kinds of data, we develop a meta-data structure that would encapsulate all the relevant information. We import the curated data collection into Curarium and utilize the various in-house tools to discover patterns, create annotations, collaborate and visualize the data. Curarium provides a novel approach in delving deep into a cultural object. However, we recognize a gap in cross-referencing objects within its natural environment. In lieu of this, the thesis proposes developing narratives about cultural objects as an approach to capturing information. We develop a platform to generate narratives based on the digital surrogates. We conduct a user study with the focus group to develop narratives on the aforementioned data-sets on a platform called Narratavium. On further research, we recognize these narratives to be of three types - within-object, within-collection, and user generated thematic narratives. Upon recognizing plots within art objects and identifying themes, we account for the human experience in interacting with these cultural objects in their natural environment. This narrows the removed appreciation of the culture by the audience. In this thesis, we utilize sequential art methods to study Pattachitra paintings, Aristotlean narrative theories to study processions and performances, and qualitative analysis to generate themes. By visualizing the narrative information, we gain insights into nuances of the objects and the collections as a whole. We use charts and clusters to extract popular themes in a collection. We develop methods to identify conflict points in a narrative and understand transitions in a story plot. We also study information retention in the process of re-narration, and relevant objects in a collection through frequently told narratives. Full thesis: pdf Centre for Exact Humanities |
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