DIVERSIONS 
MEETING 29-O5-2019, DE KROOK, GENT
Table 1

> Marie Lecrivain (Colm O'Neill): Collectie van onzekerheden / Collection des Incertitudes

• Marie started this project with another artist, Martin, who after left the project, during the worksession DiVersions. They analysed the Carmentis digital data base of the collections of the Art and History Museum ans they were struck by some 'absence' or 'uncertain items' present in the collection.
• They thought of making a new data base with a new collections based on this uncertain items.
• It would have been nice to have a plateform on which upload these items. This was the initial idea. They presented it also to the digital dipartment of the museum, so they are aware they are working with this.
• Marie will work now with Colm. She will continue using the data base of the museum.
• She would like to make a version for the first expo in Pianofabriek.
• She would like to transform this collection of 'Uncertainties' in a sort of poetic narration in a circular way (no begin, no end) on line and then, she would like to exhibit a 'finished' version of it. 
• The Uncertainties are based on a 'subjective' list of words, (like, in French, 'certainement', 'probablement', questions marks) and create a sub-collection of items. The data base of this collection will contain and be based on the original data from the database Carmentis.
• It is a way of creating a parallel reading of the classification of the objects, it offers another point of view.
• Marie works mainly with texts. It would be interesting to extend this work to images. Certainity is already a 'conflictual' word in a way, for example when you work with images (for example there are blanck images on the data base). Nicolas has encountered similar problems working with images and faces recognition for example. What are the criteria to assess that this is an object, a dog or a person, ect...
• The main question at this moment is how to deal with showing this project in an 'exhibition' form. Online is very easy to scroll through the items. How to make a distinction between something that evolve and something that it is fix in a specific moment?
• But how fast the Carmentis data base changes? It would be interesting to show how an object goes from 'uncertain' to 'certain' or vice verse.

>Zoumana Meïte (Martino Morandi): Een nieuwe vuurceremonie / Une nouvelle cérémonie du feu / A new fire ceremony

• During the worksession in the Art and History museum, Zoumana worked with other artists on the history of a statue, that was a prominent prensence in the museum/collection that rapresented either 'the goddess of womb'(Xochiquetzal) or 'the godess of destruction'(Tzitzimime) : uncertainity :).
• http://carmentis.kmkg-mrah.be/eMP/eMuseumPlus;jsessionid=A76B0FAB9326F92594CA374EF3102AEB.node1?service=direct/1/ResultLightboxView/result.t2.collection_lightbox.$TspTitleLink.link&sp=10&sp=Scollection&sp=SfilterDefinition&sp=0&sp=0&sp=1&sp=Slightbox_3x4&sp=0&sp=Sdetail&sp=0&sp=F&sp=T&sp=2
• At the moment, Zoumana was studying in a.pass and he was interested in using technology to create a certain narration. He asked himself: how to take care of the pieces of the museum? What is the paradigm of taking care of the collection throught the database?
• For this statue in particular, the 'molding' was an important paradigm (since she was 'maybe' the godess of the womb'. He read the story of these godesses that inspired him to write a story based on a real fire that happened in the museum in the 19th century. He imagined a new fire ceremony where the fire was caused by a 3D printer that it was used to reproduce each piece of the museum so as to replace each piece with its mold (there is a 'molding' atelier in the museum with a big collection of 'shapes' and molded statues and it was visited during the worksession).
• The machine doesn't have enough data and in this process of trying to reproduce pieces, the machine starts burning. The operating system Tzitzimime tries to communicate with the curator without success. 

• Zoumana will work on this project with Martino. He would like to reproduce this story in a comic novel based on the images of the Carmentis catalogue.
• The second part of the project would be an extantion of the story, implementing the story with some 'applications'. The comic novel will becoming a 'moving' catalogue: in which metadata and data will mix and create something different every time.
• The database changes the signification and the semantic of the object. Zoumana would like to play with this 'lack' of certitude or with the different narrative versions of an object. The instructions behind the database, the changing parameters change the choice you make on the database. 

> Michael Murtaugh, Nicolas Malevé: Different orders co-exist

• They are kind of changing course comparing to the work they did during the worksession in the museum. At that moment, they were working on a datebase of a Denish collector and they applied the same process to the database of the museum. The idea is to investigate who takes care of what in this database, to look at the informations that are tape in by the people or the data added by the system, they looked at the content of the images that could create different way to classify the collection. They wanted to create a multi-facetted approach to the digital collection. 
• In the project with the Danish museum they were in constant contact with people, that made the project deep and with many layers. When applied to the Art and History collection, it became a cold and just dimostrative process (the relation with the museum was of course different).
• After a lot of discussion, they decided to find a way not to be alone with the system, but find a way to interacte with the visitors or the people working there, to collect ideas, impressions, etc... They get excited about the idea od the 'coloring book' as an incomplete version of the collection, it is a selection that excludes a lot of central informations about the object (the colors desappears), but it is an invitation to fill this gap, it is a narrow invitation of course. Coloring books are part of the radical education thinkers who where using this device to educate children not with words but with images. These drawings would use contour detector to creat the images. These are tools that have often gaps and create uncompletede images.
• How would you choose the items from the collection that will feed the coloring book? Would it be a way to add another critic layer to the 'book' choosing specific items? The question is open.
• Europeana releases every years coloring books based on 'best' items using engravings pictures for example. 
• http://blog.europeana.eu/2018/02/colorourcollections-and-europeana-eych-colouring-book/
• They will use  a part of the collection of the Art and History Museum, they are not sure which one yet.
• Michael made some 'maps' of the collection of the museum that can be useful for all the artists. They are online.
• These three projects have some contact points. Maybe they can dialogue with each other? 
• Inspiring projects or examples:
• Zoological Institute for Recently Extinct Species (maybe interesting for Zoumana):
• http://old.kvs.be/index2.php?page=program&vs_id=720&lng=ENG
• http://www.jozefwouters.be/