| Abstract |
‘Techne’ (τέχνη) is an Ancient Greek word meaning art, craftsmanship, skill, but is also the etymological root of the word ‘technology’.
Today, Information and Communication technologies have progressed to a point where they substantially influence many fields of human activity, including mathematics, medicine, physics, etc., and are becoming an integral part of everyday life. However, so far they have not yet affected the way that art is created, disseminated, learnt, taught and enjoyed by people in their living environment.
As computers increasingly become embedded into common artefacts in our surroundings, Ambient Intelligence (AmI) has become the vision of “people living easily in digital environments in which the electronics are sensitive to people's needs, personalized to their requirements, anticipatory of their behaviour and responsive to their presence”. These smart environments are intended to revolutionaries all human activities such as entertainment, live, work, education, creativity etc.
This research work is targeted to apply AmI technology in all aspects of art creation and fruition, and in particular to: (i) producing visual art following the footsteps and techniques of the great art masters, (ii) learning and teaching art history and techniques, (iii) augmenting the way that art is perceived by altering the museum experience, and (iv) expanding the meaning of art from the cultural institutions to the modern smart living spaces. In this context art regains its role in our everyday lives and is uniquely interleaved and interrelated with activities such as information, entertainment and education.
In the context of this research work, the stakeholders involved in these envisioned activities were identified and their requirements were analysed. This analysis resulted in the elaboration of functional and non-functional requirements allowing the definition of interaction scenarios within the context of smart environments. These environments were envisioned, designed in 3D and populated with AmI technology. A service oriented architecture was conceived, together with the various subsystems, to support knowledge management annotation and extraction, alternative ambient interaction techniques, personalisation and adaptation. Based on the above, a suite of AmI applications were developed through the usage of a common user interface framework for art. These applications, which include the applications to support a fully functional artist’s workshop (background research, composition, design and art creation etc.), a museum scenario (information displays, interactive exhibits, applications that extend the museum experience etc.) and finally a smart living spaces scenario for transferring museum experiences at home (interactive documentaries, educational games, informative art displays etc.), were deployed within an AmI simulation space in the FORTH’s Ami facility where the envisioned scenarios were run virtually but also in the context of several feasibility studies. Finally, expert based and user based evaluation was conducted in order to identify potential usability barriers prior to the practical exploitation of the concepts.
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