How is our relationship to physical space changing as space becomes “virtual”?  What do virtual spaces reveal about the people and circumstances that create them?  Those are questions asked by Annabel Wharton, Professor in Art, Art History & Visual Studies, in her research on Medieval and Modern Architecture.

Over the past few months, Wharton has explored Second Life, an immersive world inhabited by several million avatars representing real life humans, as well as Assassin’s Creed, a popular video game set in thirteenth century Palestine and Syria. She is examining the effects of digital architectures on those who navigate those virtual realms. In Fall 2009, she plans to teach a course on Jerusalem in which students will join her in investigating the power of architecture in these new media.

For the past four years, Wharton has been studying “pathological architectures,” seeking to understand and describe the ways that “sick” buildings affect the people who occupy them. More broadly, she is interested in how architectures act as agents in modifying the way humans live.  Her work in exploring architectures in Second Life and video games is preparation for the last chapter of her book.

“It’s impossible to understand space conventionally any longer; digital worlds and immersive spaces play too large part in our economy and culture to ignore,” Wharton said.

“I expected myself to be a kind of tourist in Second Life and in video games. But the space is invasive; it doesn’t allow you to be simply an objective observer. I have become subjectively engaged, in a way that surprised me. ”

Wharton also noted that, in Second Life, the spaces are created by the avatars themselves; both shaping and acting is an expression of their producers.  As opposed to “real” life, objects retain  reference to those who made them. A chair or a house in real life is anonymous; a chair or a house in Second Life, with a click of the mouse, reveals its creator. Search engines allow you to invite those makers to talk to you about their work.

For example, during the recent presidential campaign, Wharton explored the Second Life spaces created by Democrats and Republicans. Democratic spaces were functional, open, modern, information-centered. Republican sites were architecturally elaborate with classicizing buildings and the intimacy of Main Street. She drew from her observations conclusions about the working of the “public sphere” in immersive worlds.

For faculty thinking about integrating Google Earth, Second Life or video games into a course, Wharton suggests becoming familiar with the technology first.  She compares it to learning a new language or visiting a new city with its own culture and conventions. Each technology may take several weeks of learning its mechanisms and exploring its   the territory to feel “at home”.

With Second Life, Wharton recommends having students to visit a variety of spaces, some connected directly with the course contents and some not, in order to accustom themselves to navigating the space and interacting with other residents. But finally students can construct the historical sites they are studying in three dimensions so that they and other avatars may walk through them.

Most residents of Second Life are “in world” for social purposes or for entertainment—from soft-porn to “dancing for Jesus.” But groups engaged in politics, education, art and music are also active there. Avatars can walk around the Sistine Chapel and the Temple at Karnak or they can attend discussions of Obama’s Cairo speech with Egyptians, Turks, Iranians and other Muslims from around the real world. The first brief piece that Wharton wrote about Second Life described her first visit during the Gaza War to the newly opened Palestine Holocaust Museum (article at iReport).

“It is really worth investigating digital technologies,” Wharton says, “They give you a new means of rethinking your old assumptions—a central concern of education.”

Caroline Bruzelius and faculty colleagues Mark Olson, Rachael Brady, Raquel Salvatella de Prada, and Sheila Dillon have developed a new gateway course, “Wired!”, that will integrate new technologies into the teaching of historical disciplines to prepare advanced undergraduates and graduate students to actively engage with and create new media in their scholarly work.  Students in the course will collaborate with faculty at Duke in Computer Science, Engineering and historical disciplines, as well as staff at the Nasher Museum and partners at an archaeological site in Italy to create projects that integrate scholarly research with multimedia documentation and presentation of their work.  The course will be taught for the first time in Spring 2009, with plans to make the course a regular part of the Visual Studies curriculum.

As part of the Strategic Initiative grants program, the Center for Instructional Technology is providing funding to purchase licenses for Strata Foto 3d software for use in the course.  In addition, the CIT is loaning the instructors a professional level SLR digital camera for the class.

Project start date:  1/12/2009

Funding awarded: $1,826

Using FlipCams, students produced short video interviews and pieces that showed artworks around campus, asking questions that centered around how important art is at the university, potential spaces for artworks and how students in the campus community create and experience art.

The videos were uploaded to a public blog for the course; most of the student videos can be seen in the November postings of the blog.

ARTSVIS 54 Blog:  http://artsvis54.blogspot.com/

Project Description:

Merrill Shatzman is in the early stages of creating a new course, “Personal Geographics: Mapping Self Identity”, that will be taught in Spring or Fall 2009. The course, based on traditional printmaking techniques, will focus on combining digital techniques with printmaking and involve faculty from other science and social science disciplines to encourage students to consider new ways that data visualization and mapping are used in personal inquiry and expression.

CIT Strategic Grant funding has been awarded to Shatzman to assist with development of the course. The funding will be used for a student assistant and other expenses to help Shatzman learn more advanced methods with digital graphics tools such as Photoshop and InDesign and to develop help materials, such as short video screen captures, that can be used for reference by students as they use computer graphics and visualization tools in conjunction with more traditional printmaking techniques.

Project start date: 5/22/2008
Funding awarded: $1,800

Project Description

William Noland redesigned his photography course in order to improve methods for introducing students with varying levels of experience to the basic concepts of documentary photography and image authenticity, and integrate the use of image manipulation tools in the course.

In Noland’s course, students learned about the history of documentary photography and applied methods learned to creating their own digital photographs; students used the images to create their own photography book using iPhoto and other tools. Noland addressed issues such as the authenticity of photographs by having students examine and discuss images, including examples from Flickr. Noland designed group activities to allow students who had taken photography courses in the past to help new students get familiar with concepts. CIT provided support by consulting on possible classroom activities, pointing to copyight and Fair Use resources, and helping plan training for the students on software used in the book project.

The redesigned course was taught in Spring 2007. Noland felt that the students were successful in the activities, including gaining a better understanding of documentary photography concepts, and that the book project was better organized [better organized than in prior semesters? better organized than it would have been if CIT hadn't been involved?] and a good learning experience for the students.

Project start date: 5/2006
Funding awarded: $5,000

Project Description

The Art & Art History Department sought grant funding to begin the process of formal digitization and online access to images for use in teaching Western Art survey courses. The project included in-house and outsourced digitization of slides in the collection, purchase of digital images through subscription and licensing, and creation of metadata to accompany the images for search and retrieval. In addition, the project included a joint project with Duke Libraries to pilot the use of Luna Insight image management software for accessing and using the images.

The transition to digital of slide collections has been an emerging issue for Art History departments and the CIT grant was intended to facilitate this process. By creating a digital slide collection, the department hoped to increase access to digital images by faculty teaching classes and create more flexibility in working with images in courses. The Luna Insight software provided the ability for faculty to create custom collections for study by students and easily arrange material for lectures and other classroom activities.

In the second phase of the project, started in Spring 2004, development of the Wester Art survey image archive continued and digitization and acquisition of images to support teaching in the areas of Asian Art and introductory graphic design were added. The Library and the Art Department tested the Luna Insight software and the images were transferred to a new system, MDID@Duke, that is currently being used by Art & Art History for the collections. As of Fall 2007, creation of metadata and digitization of slides from the collection continues using funding originally provided as part of this CIT grant; Art & Art History courses in Fall 2007 will be testing MDID software as an access tool for the collections.

Additional participants

• Stanley Abe, Associate Professor, Chinese Art,Theory & Criticism (phase 1)
• Mark Antliff, Professor, 20th Century Art, Theory & Criticism (phase 2)
• Anya Belkina, Assistant Professor of the Practice of Visual Arts, Drawing & Computer Graphics (phase 2)
• Caroline Bruzelius, Anne M. Cogan Professor, Medieval Architecture & Sculpture, History of France & Italy Architectural History Medieval, Renaissance, and Islamic Art (phase 2)
• Sheila Dillon, Associate Professor of Art History, Greek & Roman Art and Classical Studies (phase 1)
• Jack Edinger, Staff, Art and Art History (phase 2)
• Patricia Leighton, Professor, Late 19th and Early 20th Century Art, History of Photography, Theory & Criticism (phase 2)
• Neil McWilliam, Walter H. Annenberg Professor, European Art 1780-1900, French Sculpture, History of Art Criticism (phase 2)
• Richard Powell, John Spencer Bassett Professor, American, Afro-American and African Art (phase 1 & 2)
• Hans van Miegroet, Professor, Early Modern Art (Department Chair) (phase 1 & 2)
• Annabel Wharton, William B. Hamilton Professor, Early Christian and Byzantine Art & Architecture, Modern Architecture (phase 2)

Project start date: 8/01/2002
Funding awarded: $14,400 (Phase 1, Fall 2002), $30,034 (Phase 2, Spring 2004)