Institute of 4D Technologies

Fig.: Physical archives of the Swiss Institute for Art Research SIK-ISEA that will be accessible as digital data.

Nowadays research and editorial tasks in digital archives are usually carried out on conventional desktop computers. But workspaces are too small to compare different documents and the interaction possibilities are too limited to give consideration to the respective media or to create relevant documentations, and they are not suited for collaborative work situations. This raises the following questions:

• What new work methods surge from the use of digital information and digital archives?
• How can collaborative work environments be used sensibly for those archives?
• What new usage scenarios can we deduce for other areas of application?

With the presented project we address future challenges of the knowledge society. We develop a collaborative work environment that permits rummaging in digital datasets and translates traditional table based archive tasks into the digital world.

The project goal is a functional setup that supports the use of multimedia information for research, documentation and exhibition contexts. The concept should be transferable to other fields of application as well. We have therefore planned to design prototypes in hard and software, consisting in horizontally and vertically mounted displays and suitable interaction devices (multitouch and tracking technology). Moreover we are implementing a software tool for interactive visualization and collaborative collection of digital archive material, and we work on a concept for a universal interface that can be used for this multimedia environment.