a subject in transition; opportunities and problems
CHArt Seventeenth Annual Conference
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DIGITAL
ART HISTORY a subject in transition; opportunities and problems |
Stephen Clancy, Ithaca College, New York, USA
The Cathedral as a Virtual Encyclopaedia: reconstructing the "Texts" of Chartres Cathedral
The project begins with the notion that traditional methods of presentation and study - e.g. the art-historical slide lecture - can only hope to summarize abstractly the dynamism of the Gothic cathedral. The Gothic cathedral functioned as an encyclopaedia of late medieval humanistic and spiritual concerns - a cultural "text" that was both "written" and "read" by its varied users. We attempt to "read" this encyclopaedia today in order to understand the religious beliefs, cultural values, and secular practices encoded within it. But we view the cathedral and its environment through modern tourist and commercial lenses, instead of reading their significance through the lens of medieval cultural attitudes. In addition, slides and photographs treat the cathedral merely as a series of static, two-dimensional visual compositions, devoid of spatial continuity, and divorced from the urban and social contexts that gave it meaning. These modern images are also unable to recreate the original intended appearances of these walls and spaces, in part because the cathedral's structure, imagery, and furnishings have changed or vanished over time. But just as importantly, there was, in effect, no "original intended appearance" of the cathedral and its urban environment. Instead, the cathedral acted as constantly changing environment for imagery, devotional ceremonies, and secular practices, adapting itself to the different audiences and occasions it served and the different events that echoed within the bishopric it ruled.
The project uses innovative digital technologies to (1) Simulate the spatial contexts and continuities both outside and inside the present-day cathedral; (2) Simulate the 13th-century physical appearances of Chartres Cathedral and its urban and rural contexts; (3) Provide an interactive means of "experiencing" both the 21st- and 13th-century appearances and contexts; and (4) Allow the cathedral and its environment to be viewed through the lens of the varied cultural attitudes of 13th-century Chartres. The project uses over 1,600 digital images, QuickTime panoramas, Photoshop reconstructions of these panoramas, and an interactive interface created with Director. Fundamentally, my project seeks to integrate traditional humanities scholarship and teaching with state-of-the-art technologies that are revolutionizing the ways in which a 21st-century population accesses cultural objects.