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

这个研究小组正在举办一系列的三个研讨会，由科学家和保护人员与艺术和人文研究人员一起工作，研究如何保护、展示和重新解释复杂的人工制品和自然物体。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。讲习班的重点是诺丁汉特伦特大学（NTU）和维多利亚和阿尔伯特博物馆（V&A）的蕾丝收藏以及自然历史博物馆（NHM）的植物、动物和化石物品收藏带来的挑战。这些藏品是跨学科探索一系列解决方案的工具，以满足这些复杂的人工制品所带来的保护需求、策展需求和文化挑战。该集群将鼓励创新思维，通过将蕾丝收藏的需求与自然历史收藏中发现的保护和重新解释复杂自然物体的挑战进行比较，扩展其对物质文化的探索。参与者将包括来自大学、博物馆、档案馆、中小企业和其他机构的物理学家、保护人员、策展人、技术专家、文化从业者和设计师。研讨会将通过在南洋理工大学、诺丁汉城市博物馆和画廊（NCMG）、V&A和NHM的文物进行演讲和“近距离接触”，讨论科学在复杂文物和自然物体的保护、解释和表现中的应用。这种技能、经验、资源和科学知识的交流将产生一系列专题和有见地的研究问题。由于藏品的性质，参与者将能够考虑科学对遗产的应用，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工业的社会、工业和技术历史中，也体现在诺丁汉皇家博物馆的档案和收藏中。蕾丝体现了分析、解释和展示不稳定和短暂的人工制品所固有的许多问题。在对比鲜明的背景下，它看起来像一个印刷图案，隐藏了生产过程的活力和使用材料的褶皱和运动。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该过程对蕾丝工人的影响。同样，许多自然史藏品都是复杂的结构，在收集、保存、管理和保存它们的过程中经历了许多人为干预。科学在保护花边和揭示这种复杂的人工制品和自然物体的结构以及它们作为历史物质文化一部分的全部意义方面是必要的。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伤之间的权衡，并揭示历史花边样品的结构，以告知他们的解释。计算机动画技术，如南洋理工大学的同事在科学博物馆应用的技术，以及与诺丁汉市博物馆和画廊合作的研究项目“叙述过去”，可以通过视听叙事将社会和文化历史嵌入实时虚拟模型中，为历史事件和遗址提供背景。该小组还将探索其他科学技术及其解决这些问题的潜力。这些工作坊可能会产生能够看到表面之下的技术，这些技术可以提供给结构的表示和计算机模型，以及新的制造技术和工艺，从而从根本上增强人工制品的展示和解释。

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.