From The Theme
ADVANCED HUMAN COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES

WHAT IF?
What if we could develop new technological solutions for virtual 3D worlds and apply these for high-level cultural programming and education?

WHAT WE SET OUT TO DO
We set out to experiment with a new “mixed” reality model of curatorial practice, meshing physical and virtual worlds to develop new interactive models of museum exhibits and museum based education. Exhibit themes revolved around the role of speed and slowness in modern culture.

WHAT WE FOUND
The project involved a partnership with the Sirikata open source virtual world platform, developed by members of the Stanford Computer Science department and the Stanford Humanities Lab. Exhibits were developed in partnership with the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the Wofsonian-FIU museum in Florida and the Bornholms Kunstmuseum in Denmark. The project led to the development of software on the Sirikata platform, which extended the traditional art exhibit by allowing visitors to engage in deeper ways, such as creating their own digital exhibits.

LEARN MORE
About Sirikata

Canadian Center for Architecture, Speed Limits Exhibit, 2009

Bornholms Museum, Denmark, Speed Limits Exhibit, 2010

Wolfsonian-FIU Museum, Speed Limits Exhibit, 2010-2011

PEOPLE BEHIND THE PROJECT
Jeffrey T. Schnapp (at the time) was the Rosina Pierotti Chair of Italian Studies, Founder/Co‐director of the Stanford Humanities Lab and Professor, French & Italian, and Comparative Literature at Stanford University. (As of this post 1/27/17) Jeffrey is the founder/faculty director of metaLAB (at) Harvard and faculty co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. At Harvard, he serves as Professor of Romance Literatures and Comparative Literature, and is on the teaching faculty in the Department of Architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.

Henrik Bennetsen (at the time) was a Research Associate with Stanford Humanities Lab, H&S. (As of this post 1/27/17) Henrik is CBO of Pneubotics in San Francisco. He held various research positions at the Stanford Humanities Lab at Stanford University from 2005-2010. Mr. Bennetsen has an MSc., in Media Technology from the IT University of Copenhgagen.

Consulting Team Members, Stanford University:
Edward Feigenbaum, Professor, Computer Science, Stanford University
Pat Hanrahan, Professor, Computer Science, Stanford University
Henry Lowood, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford Humanities Lab
Michael Shanks, Anthropology, Classics, Stanford University

Non‐Stanford project partners:
Mirko Zardini, Director, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, Canada
Cathy Leff, Director, the Wolfsonian‐FIU Museum, Miami