Understanding complex structures: the conservation, display and interpretation of lace and natural objects

该研究组正在举办一系列三个研讨会，由科学家和文物保护者与艺术和人文研究人员合作，着眼于保护、展示和重新解释复杂的文物和自然物品。它将建立一个新的社区，产生新的研究想法，并为一系列实际问题提出可能的解决方案。研讨会的重点将集中在诺丁汉特伦特大学(NTU)和维多利亚与阿尔伯特博物馆(V&A)的蕾丝收藏以及自然历史博物馆(NHM)的植物学、动物学和化石文物收藏带来的挑战。这些藏品是跨学科探索一系列解决方案的工具，以解决这些复杂文物带来的保护需求、策展需求和文化挑战。该集群将通过将蕾丝收藏的需求与保护和重新解释自然历史收藏中发现的复杂自然物品的挑战进行比较，将其探索扩展到物质文化之外，从而鼓励创新思维。参加者将包括来自大学、博物馆、档案馆、中小企业和其他机构的物理学家、文物保护人员、策展人、技术人员、文化从业者和设计师。工作坊将通过在NTU、诺丁汉市博物馆和美术馆(NCMG)、维多利亚与阿尔伯特博物馆(V&A)和国家博物馆(NHM)的演讲和与文物的近距离接触，讨论如何将科学应用于复杂文物和自然文物的保护、解释和表现。这种技能、经验、资源和科学知识的交流将产生一系列有洞察力的专题研究问题。由于藏品的性质，与会者将能够考虑将科学应用于遗产，以及对科学和技术遗产本身的解释和解释。后者体现在诺丁汉花边行业的社会、工业和技术史上，以及国家卫生研究院的档案和收藏品中。花边体现了分析、解释和展示不稳定和短暂的文物所固有的许多问题。在对比背景的衬托下，它看起来就像一个印刷图案，隐藏了生产过程的动态以及使用中材料的悬垂和移动。它的图案不容易揭示它们的结构或用于制作它们的物理技术，以及工艺对花边工人的影响。同样，自然历史收藏中的许多物品都是复杂的结构，在收集、保存、管理和保存它们时经历了大量的人类干预。科学对于保护花边和揭示这些复杂的人工制品和自然物品的结构以及它们作为历史物质文化一部分的全部意义是必要的。非侵入性成像和微褪色技术可以帮助平衡展示中对光的需求和保护文物免受光损害之间的权衡，并揭示历史花边样本的结构，为其解释提供信息。计算机动画技术，例如台大同事在科学博物馆应用的技术，以及与诺丁汉市博物馆和美术馆合作的研究项目“讲述过去”，可以通过视听叙事将社会和文化历史嵌入实时虚拟模型，为历史事件和地点提供背景。该组还将探索其他科学技术及其解决这些问题的潜力。这些研讨会可能会产生看到表面以下的技术，这些技术可以输入到结构的表示和计算机模型中，以及新的制造技术和工艺，以从根本上增强文物的展示和解释。

This Research Cluster is running a series of three workshops looking at conserving, displaying and re-interpreting complex artefacts and natural objects by scientists and conservators working together with arts and humanities researchers. It will build a new community, generating new research ideas and proposing possible solutions to a range of practical issues. To focus the workshops they will concentrate on the challenges thrown up by the lace collections at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and the collections of botanical, zoological and fossil objects at the Natural History Museum (NHM). These collections are a vehicle for the interdisciplinary exploration of a range of solutions to the conservation needs, curatorial demands and cultural challenges that such complex artefacts create. The cluster will encourage innovative thinking by extending its exploration beyond material culture by comparing the demands of lace collections with the challenges of conserving and reinterpreting complex natural objects as found in natural history collections. Participants will include physicists, conservators, curators, technologists, cultural practitioners and designers, drawn from universities, museums, archives, SMEs and other institutions The workshops will enable discussion of the application of science to the conservation, interpretation and representation of complex artefacts and natural objects, through presentations and 'close encounters' with artefacts at NTU, Nottingham City Museums and Galleries (NCMG), V&A, and NHM. This exchange of skills, experience, resources and scientific knowledge will generate a range of topical and insightful research questions. Because of the nature of the collections, participants will be able to consider both the application of science to heritage, and the explication and interpretation of the heritage of science and technology itself. The latter is represented in the social, industrial and technological history of the Nottingham lace industry, and in the archives and collections at the NHM.Lace exemplifies many of the problems inherent to the analysis, interpretation and display of unstable and ephemeral artefacts. Displayed flat against a contrasting background it appears like a printed pattern which hides the dynamism of the production process and the drape and movement of the material in use. Its patterns do not easily reveal their structure or the physical techniques used to make them and the impact of the process on lace workers. Likewise, many objects in natural history collections are complex structures which have undergone much human intervention in collecting, preserving, curating and conserving them. Science is necessary in the conservation of lace and to reveal the structure of such complex artefacts and natural objects, and their full significance as part of historic material culture. Non-invasive imaging and microfading techniques could help balance the trade off between the need for light in display and the conservation of artefacts from light damage and reveal the structure of historic lace samples to inform their interpretation. Computer animation techniques, such as those applied by colleagues at NTU in the Science Museum and the research project 'Narrating the Past' with Nottingham City Museums and Galleries, can supply a context for historical events and sites by embedding social and cultural history into real-time virtual models through audiovisual narrative. This cluster will also explore other scientific techniques and their potential to address these issues.These workshops may result in techniques to see below the surface which can feed into representations and computer models of structures, as well as new manufacturing techniques and processes to radically enhance the display and interpretation of artefacts.