On-Campus Partner: Emily Potter-Ndiaye, Miloslava Hruba, Mead Art Museum
Teaching Objective: Learn about the study, representation, and reconstruction of art and architecture using digital technologies.
Project Description: Professor Rice’s course Digital Art History in Fall 2020 included many examples of 3D representations of art and architecture. The students didn't actually have the chance to create any new 3-D models or prints due to the limitations of learning remotely. However, students got to use 3D representations in many ways to study art and architecture. These included:
- A virtual tour of the ancient city of Bagan in Myanmar, the site of thousands of Buddhist temples, some of whose interiors and exteriors can be explored using the keyboard to move around.
- A reconstruction of the pages of the fragile En-Gedi scroll using x-ray tomography and computer software, which “unwrapped” the scroll and allowed the written Hebrew to be revealed.
- 3D representations of museum pieces such as sculptures, amulets, swords, and other artifacts that can be manipulated with the keyboard to view them from any direction and examine their details. After the course ended, a student from this class, Kalea Ramsey began to work with the Mead Art Museum to develop and print 3D objects.
- The virtual art exhibition Embodied Taste at the Mead Art Museum, which can be experienced with a VR headset, or navigated with a mouse on a 2D computer screen.
Academic Technology Tools: 3D video cameras; laser scanners; x-ray tomographic scanners; DSLR cameras; Matterport software.
The first room of the virtual art exhibition Embodied Taste at the Mead Art Museum, displaying several paintings that can be viewed close up, along with their descriptions.
