Creating a New Museum: Keio Museum Commons Part 3: Aiming for the Fusion of Digital and Analog—The Challenge of KeMCo StudI/O

2020/12/23

In the third installment of this series, we will detail "KeMCo StudI/O" (formerly known as the I/O Room), a space at the forefront of one of the visions held by Keio Museum Commons (hereafter KeMCo): the "fusion of digital and analog."

As mentioned in previous installments of this series, KeMCo StudI/O, located on the 8th floor of the East Annex, is a creation studio for practicing various forms of "fabrication." The "I" in StudI/O stands for "Input" and the "O" for "Output." It serves as a place to input and output the tangible and intangible cultural properties that Keio University has accumulated over its history of more than 160 years. The studio is equipped with various digital and analog fabrication functions, including electronic components, 3D scanners/printers, and laser cutters. It allows museum visitors, Keio students, faculty, staff, and researchers to "experience the relationship between digital and analog while being in close contact with the practice of exhibition and storage in a museum, and to develop cross-media creation."

Such fabrication facilities have been developed in various ways on other campuses as well. For example, the Shonan Fujisawa Campus (SFC) promotes making things across the entire campus under the name "Fab Campus." Additionally, the Kyoseikan Collaboration Complex at the Hiyoshi Campus houses a fabrication facility called "EDGE LAB CREATIVE LOUNGE," which also promotes international collaborative research in the field of design.

While referencing these facilities, KeMCo StudI/O, which was born as the first creation studio on the Mita Campus, is unique in that it places emphasis not only on "Output" but also on "Input," taking advantage of sharing the same building as the exhibition rooms and storage as part of the museum. "Input" literally means entering data, and it promotes the digitization of cultural properties (information) accumulated, collected, or preserved by Keio University, as well as their introduction into digital spaces, including the internet. In contrast, for "Output," the plan is to release and share the input data and promote its utilization both within Keio and externally. By considering both "Input" and "Output" activities as two pillars, KeMCo StudI/O will also play a role in inheriting and developing culture. In Mita, a site where history and culture are concentrated, the use of advanced digital technology combined with the reflection of multi-dimensional perspectives from people with diverse expertise and background knowledge (visitors, Keio students, faculty, staff, researchers, etc.) allows the "inputted" cultural properties (information) to lead to "Output" such as secondary use and secondary creation. This creates a mutual cycle of Input/Output, enabling the steady inheritance of history and culture and creative development.

As mentioned above, KeMCo StudI/O is equipped with various fabrication devices corresponding to Input/Output. While details of the equipment are omitted here, the studio is equipped with photography and fabrication tools, supporting high-resolution still photography of books including rare books, arts and crafts, and large-scale pictorial maps. For three-dimensional objects, it is possible to obtain 3D data including color information through portable high-precision 3D scanners. In addition, several types of 3D printers with different materials and extraction methods are permanently installed.

Fabrication serves many purposes, such as (a) recording and preserving works where aging and damage are inevitable, (b) increasing access points for works that are physically difficult to view or browse, or (c) visualizing details of works that are difficult to see with the naked eye. Since KeMCo StudI/O anticipates a user base rich in diversity, from beginners to experts, it is designed to meet a wide range of demands, from speedy prototyping to full-scale content production.

As detailed in the second installment of this series, a work by artist and Keio University alumni Enrico Isamu Oyama is installed in the center of KeMCo StudI/O, stimulating and inspiring the creativity of users through the five senses. In this unique space, KeMCo aims to promote education and research activities that transcend the boundaries of learning fields and specialized areas in parallel with fabrication activities.

From its initial conception, KeMCo has been composed of staff specializing in various fields such as literature, art, and information engineering. Currently, the "KeMCo Digital-Analog Fusion Project Members" (Professor Hiroshi Shigeno of the Faculty of Science and Technology, Assistant Professor Yu Homma, and the author) are responsible for the operation of KeMCo StudI/O. The members themselves have different specialized fields: information engineering, aesthetics and art history, and media design. However, it is precisely for this reason that we believe we can create new educational and research results by cooperating with experts in other fields and domains and having a composite perspective.

Specific educational programs planned include hands-on lectures where students from affiliated schools (including the Yochisha Elementary School) and Keio students from various faculties/graduate schools can think and explore by working with their own hands using Keio University's cultural properties, as well as skill-acquisition and experiential workshops, ideathons, and hackathons. We aim for it to be a place to learn and create together through the intersection of various perspectives and contexts among participants. Furthermore, we plan to expand these activities within Keio and externally, collaborating with labs on other campuses to network the labs and create "exchange" that crosses not only disciplines but also organizations.

As all readers have experienced, the social environment surrounding us has changed dramatically in the last few months due to the impact of COVID-19. With many Keio students still unable to come to the university, how can we create "learning and exchange centered on works of art"? After careful consideration, KeMCo decided to develop KeMCo StudI/O as a hybrid model adaptable to both "in-person" and "remote" settings.

Even if all the knowledge and information obtained in person cannot be gained from a remote environment, "learning and exchange" should not be limited by one's environment. Based on this idea, a permanent remote conferencing system (Zoom Rooms) was installed in the studio, enabling simultaneous two-way participation in all workshops and lectures held within the studio. Additionally, by supporting BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), we are taking care to accommodate the diversity of users and usage environments, improving practicality and availability.

I have briefly described the significance and value of KeMCo StudI/O, but such a facility is meaningless if it is just built; it becomes a white elephant unless it is actually utilized. Therefore, while monitoring the situation, we would like to start by holding online workshops from the beginning of next year to make it a place that Keio students, faculty, and staff can utilize. Furthermore, beyond internal educational and research use, we plan to open it to the general public who may not have specialized knowledge or research experience after the grand opening, in collaboration with the local community and the Keio University community.

Additionally, although not covered in detail in this article, the Digital-Analog Fusion Project is also working on the creation of digital archives (which Professor Hiroshi Shigeno is scheduled to introduce in the latter half of this series). Along with playing a role in connecting today's cultural properties to the future, we are working day and night on research so that more people will take an interest in the cultural properties owned by Keio University.

Please look forward to our future initiatives, and if you are interested in activities at KeMCo StudI/O, please feel free to contact KeMCo.