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Labyrinth 3D. Cultural archetypes for exploring media archives
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DOI:10.1080/14626268.2016.1212899
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12 January 2023
This is the author's final version of the contribution published as:
Damiano, Rossana; Lombardo, Vincenzo. Labyrinth 3D. Cultural archetypes
for exploring media archives. DIGITAL CREATIVITY. 27 (3) pp: 234-255.
DOI: 10.1080/14626268.2016.1212899
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Digital Creativity

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Labyrinth 3D. Cultural archetypes for exploring media
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archives
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Journal: Digital Creativity
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Manuscript ID: Draft
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Manuscript Type: Technical article
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Keywords: media arc hives, 3D environments, exploratory search, cultural heritage,
archetypes

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Page 1 of 39 Digital Creativity
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8 Labyrinth 3D. Cultural archetypes for exploring media archives
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Since the advent of the World Wide Web, online media archives have changed
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their audience from a restricted number of professionals and amateurs to the
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15 general public. This shift is not without consequences: if, on the one side, it
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repFresents an important opportunity for archives to engage in a dialogue with a
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18 larger audience, on the other side it advocates novel forms of access that go
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20 beyond ther highly specialized models underlying traditional access tools.
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In this paper, we propose to use 3D graphics for designing novel tools of
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23 exploratory seaPrch in cultural heritage archives. Our approach has been deployed
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25 as an online virtual eenvironment where the user can navigate the meaning
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relations over the items in the archive. Targeted at cultural heritage, the
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28 application, called here Larbyrinth 3D, relies on the use of cultural archetypes to
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inform the conceptualization of the archive and the creation of the virtual
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31 environment, with the goal of eRngaging the user in the exploration of the archive
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33 through the creation of personal patehs.
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36 Keywords: media archives, 3D environmenits, exploratory search, cultural
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heritage, archetypes
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1. Introduction
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In the last decades, the advent of the Wold Wide Web has led public institutions and
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46 private actors (the latter also known as creative and cultural inndustries - CCI), to publish
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48 their media archives online, dramatically increasing the range of cultural contents that
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are available to the general public. Online digital archives innovate the access of
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53 cultural resources (Bolick, 2006, Haskins 2007, Beer & Burrows 2013), advocating new
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55 forms of curation and access to cope with what has been called the "data deluge",
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generated by the digitalization process and the advent of born digital data (Hey and
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60 Trefethen 2003, Beagrie 2008). The rich variety of online imagery, text, and other
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Digital Creativity Page 2 of 39
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3 resources raise new challenges to the traditional paradigm of archive access, stimulating
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novel and interactive methods that culminate with the emergence of "archive inspired"
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8 creativity. For example, the artist Shimon Attie (Popescu 2012) creates multimedia art
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installations where archive materials such as film footage and pictures become part of
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an immersive audience experience; similarly, the work "Were the house still standing",
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15 designed by a multi-disciplinary team of artists, photographers and sound designers, is a
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multimedia installation about the Holocaust, which incorporates archival recordings and
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20 images into a poertic storytelling (Katz and Quin 2012).
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22 As noticed by Chen et al. (2005), the openness of digital archives implies the
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coexistence of different user perspectives over the archive contents, ranging from the
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27 historical and archaeologicale stance to the iconographical and cultural one. In order to
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support multiple perspectives in the access to the archives, Chen et al. propose the
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insertion of an explicit "abstraction layer" into the architecture of the digital archive, to
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34 acknowledge the relevance of the conceptual models employed by the users in the
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interpretation of the archive contents.
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In this paper, we join Chen et al.'s notion of abstraction layer with the paradigm
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41 of archive-based creativity by proposing "cultural archet ypes" as conceptual tools that
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support the construction of personal paths through digital archives. Inspired by the
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46 research in iconology (Van de Waal1974, Warburg and Birnk n2008), literature (Highet
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48 1949) and narratology (Thompson 1955), we employ the term 'archetype' to refer to a
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conceptual core set at the intersection of narrative motifs, iconological themes and
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53 classical mythology. Common examples are the archetypes of "journey", " labyrinth",
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and "hero": deeply rooted in collective consciousness, as stated by C. G. Jung (1981)
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and enforced by the practice of imitation in Western Culture, these archetypes possess
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Page 3 of 39 Digital Creativity
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within shared, unifying conceptual models.
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8 In our proposal, the cultural archetype motif deploys an online exploratory
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environment through the selection of one virtual archetype that inspires the design of a
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graphic dynamic interactive interface, and the organization of a number of archetypes -
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15 collected after the study of the archive -, for the design of the user interaction. In
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particular, the graphic interface is a realization of the well known archetype of the
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20 labyrinth, introdurced by the myth of the Minotaur but retrievable even in contemporary
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22 culture (e.g., J.K. Rowland's Harry Potter's novel about a "goblet of fire", where a
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tournament is partly held in a hedge maze) and spanning distant geographical locations
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27 (from, e.g., Cnossos Palace ien the island of Crete to the city of Reims in France, where a
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well-known labyrinth is represented in the cathedral). As surveyed by Kern (2000),
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different realizations of the archetype of the labyrinth span worldwide across ages,
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34 ranging from the representations provided by ancient civilizations all across Europe to
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the mazes created in the last century, with mirrors and hedges, for entertainment (for
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example, the well known hedge maze in Hampton Court). The virtual environment, that
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41 we will term Labyrinth 3D in this paper, has been design ed with the goal of supporting
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the archetype-based exploration of media archives: the user is immersed in a 3D maze,
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46 where the locations, corresponding to archive items, are connencted through pathways
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48 created dynamically, following the meaning relations that are inferred automatically in a
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computational ontology of archetypes. Turning point after turning point, the user
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53 decides where to direct her/his exploration, based on her/his curiosity about the
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categories of the archetypes (“character”, “story”, “action”, “object”, “place”, and
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“epoch”) represented in the ontology. As she/he advances in the maze, following
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Digital Creativity Page 4 of 39
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3 personal choices driven by the preferences for the archetypal category, a path emerges,
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connecting distant items,.
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8 This paper is structured as follows: after describing the motivations and
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requirements accounted for in the system design (Section 2), we illustrate the sources of
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inspiration that informed its design (Section 3) and how they eventually shaped the
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15 implemented system (Section 4). The description of the system abstracts from technical
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details to focus on the user experience, that we describe through a navigation example.
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20 An account of ther feedback received from the audience (Section 5) and the conclusion
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2. Background motivations and functional requirements
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The digital convergence that has recently affected the access to cultural heritage
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33 and the distribution of media objects briengs content producers and consumers to share
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35 and generate contents, working alongside thve traditional paths of cultural markets and
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38 education (Jenkins 2006). In the access to cultureal heritage, digital convergence has
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40 favoured the development of digital platforms, suchw as online museums and cultural
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websites, aimed at encouraging the approach of the general public (consider, for
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example, the well known Europeana web portal1). Notwithstanding the disruptive
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47 potential of the convergent culture, however, the access to digital lmedia archives is still
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largely based on keywords and/or tags, through which the users can filter contents to
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52 find what they need. Personalization and integration with social networks have been
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54 exploited to innovate the relationship of the archives with the audience, but the basic
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access paradigm has not changed yet. Rather, the research has focused on the design of
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1 www.europeana.org
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Page 5 of 39 Digital Creativity
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3 effective search tools, integrated by personalization and recommendations, without
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affecting the general framework depicted above, which is based on formally specified
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8 queries. As a result, a change of paradigm in archive exploration has not been
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accomplished yet: the access to online archives still relies, in most cases, on the
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metaphor of the traditional archive, where a collection of physical items are described in
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15 a catalogue by subject, title, etc., and the access to them is obtained by searching
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various indexes implemented on the catalogue. A search in a digital archive normally
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20 returns a list of rerlevant objects (books, pictures, videos, etc.), without an explicit
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22 representation of the meaning relations over them, with the exception of from spatial
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and temporal representations such as maps and timelines. The advent of the Semantic
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27 Web can compensates for thies lack, but the complexity of relations encoded in the
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formal languages of the Semantic Web may exacerbate the presentation issues.
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Pioneering attempts have been made at using different type of conceptual categories to
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34 describe archive contents: for example, the Agora project (Van Den Akker et al. 2011)
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describes artworks in terms of the historical events they refer to; the Decipher project
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relies on a story ontology to support the creation of "museum narratives" (i.e., story-
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41 based collections of artworks) by curators (Mulholland e t al. 2012). The access to
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digital collections, however, still relies on traditional metaphors that replicate a physical
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46 equivalent, such as the archive or the museum. n
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49 Our proposal relies on three main premises.
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The first premise concerns the inadequacy of search based tools to the needs of
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54 the general public, recently pointed by Hall (2014): in most cases, people approach an
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archive without a specific set of items in mind - or, even worse, without a specific set of
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constraints to form their queries. According to Hall, access tools should specifically
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support the exploration of the archives by the users: the notion of exploratory search
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Digital Creativity Page 6 of 39
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3 (Marchionini 1996), characterized by serendipity, is especially suitable to the needs of
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non professional users, who approach an archive without any specific search goals in
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8 mind, but with the simple desire to explore its contents. In our proposal, the key to the
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access is the notion of archetype: this notion provides an explicit abstraction layer for
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archive access, open to the creation of personal paths through the contents, and
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15 identifies the specific archetype of the labyrinth to devise a spatial metaphor for
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supporting the exploration task in a virtual space.
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22 The second premise concerns the tradition of organising cultural artefacts along
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thematic categories based on their historical, geographical and iconographical features,
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27 whose importance is emphaseized by the multidisciplinary perspective of digital
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convergence (Trant 2008). This practice not only underpins the use of timelines, maps,
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and advanced visualizations in online digital archives, but brings with it the established
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34 use of spatial layouts to convey categories. Consider, for instance, the use of spatial
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layouts in cultural spaces, such as exhibitions and museums, to create thematic sections
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and paths (Hillier & Tzortzi 2006). Our approach adapts this paradigm to the
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41 exploration of archives: we propose an especially design ed, virtual environment that the
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users explore to access the contents of the archive through the archetypal visual
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46 metaphors of the labyrinth, with the causal and associative relantions over the contents
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53 The third premise concerns the use of visual technologies, employed in today's
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applications that range from video games to edutainment and installation art, and
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capable of providing immersive, engaging user experiences (LaViola & Keefe 2011).
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60 The use of 3D for data visualization relies on the process described by Manovich
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Page 7 of 39 Digital Creativity
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3 (2011), by which the properties of the digital medium, through the use of specific
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software for editing, sharing, and analyzing digital data, shape the actual content to be
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8 conveyed: 'all ‘properties of digital media are now defined by the particular software as
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opposed to solely being contained in the actual content' (p 30). However, these
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properties by themselves do not ensure the reception of the intended conceptualization:
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15 as argued by Ziemkiewicz -Kosara (2008), based on their empirical studies, the choice
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of the visual metaphor is crucial to communicating a conceptual model to the users, that
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20 goes beyond the prroperties of the medium. Moreover, Rieber & Noah (2008) show that
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provides a more effective transmission of the notions to the users. Here, 3D
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27 visualization is put to use fore engaging the audience in the exploration of data through
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the archetypal element.
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3. Inspirational works
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38 The conceptual model encoded in Labyrienth 3D is inspired by the notion of
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40 cultural archetype, set at the intersection of categoriwes of prominently narrative nature,
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namely character, story, action, object, place, and epoch. Stories provide an effective
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conceptual model for mediating between the user and the description of the cultural
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47 artefacts, thanks to the relevance of narrative cognition for the tranlsmission of cultural
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values (Bruner 1991). The content of visual artworks, in particular, can often be
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52 described in terms of some narrative situation, i.e., a basic template where a character is
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54 depicted in the intentional act of doing something, using some instrument, as part of the
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achievement of some goals that characterize her/him. An example of the role of
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59 narrative templates in iconography is provided by Iconclass (Van de Waal, 1974), a
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thesaurus of subjects employed to classify art objects according to their iconographic
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