Urban heritage institutions possess a wealth of objects and stories. Despite digitisation, valuable heritage knowledge often remains within the walls of these institutes. And there is more treasure hidden outside the walls: how residents experience this cultural heritage and the stories they tell about it. The 'Gentenaar's Collection' brings these two worlds together.
We created an installation enabling the visitors to explore this collection, through a virtual space littered with these images. Visitors are encouraged to pick an item, cut out a part of it, and add it to a common collage. This collage will thus be an overview of the items which stand out to the audience.
To create this virtual space, we asked an AI to annotate 48.000 items in the collection, which were then placed together based on this description. By doing this, visitors seem to wander around in seeing piles of similar items in the collection, enabling them to navigate towards their interest, and to get an overview of the available items before choosing their object for the collage.
This project consists of a number of components, both digital and physical;
This project was made possible with support of the UIA, District09, and the EU.
Phone: (+32) 493 71 23 66
Email: info@ctrlalt.be