Interpreting Public Lands through Digital Art
Visitors centers at natural parklands often feature inherently dull exhibits. Their use
of art as a means of interpretation is generally limited to basketry, pottery, and quilts.
Digital media has the potential to become the new folk art. The widespread proliferation
of consumer electronics and software make it a practical option for collecting works from
and displaying it for the general public.
Interface
Kammer editions are interactive displays that house collections of digital video,
animation, and slideshows. Visitors who are somewhat familiar with website navigation
should be able to browse the content intuitively while remaining uncertain of what they
might find. Online access is optional, but not recommended.
Content
The artist and guest collaborators create region-specific content for each commissioned
kammer edition. In a sense, this base content serves as an inspirational model for visitor-
generated content. Curators ultimately decide how to acquire new works to add to their
display. As their collection grows, they will also be responsible for keeping it organized.
This task requires minimal computer skills and a complete disregard for boundaries set
by venerable departments of academia.
Venue
Kammer prototypes were tested in contemporary art galleries in Kentucky, New Mexico,
Minnesota, and Illinois. Considering the main objectives, however, a nature center is
preferable. Enhancing appreciation for public lands is a primary goal. Half the battle is
attracting audiences who wouldn't otherwise set foot in a natural parkland.
An equally important goal is to expose contemporary art to those who don’t often venture
into trendy urban districts. Given the mutually exclusive territories of our target
audiences, it might be worth noting that drawing art crowds to a nature center is less
challenging than luring outdoorsy folk into an art gallery.
Concept
Park interpretation is an expression of the land’s natural, cultural, and historic
significance. Each department is further dissected and subclassified under narrower
fields of study. The rigid order we impose on the landscape is necessary for organizing
the mass amounts of information we harvest from it.
Long before the development of specialized studies, the natural world was evaluated by
subjective criteria. Methodologies were imaginative. Unfamiliar specimens were collected
and displayed in ways that revealed less about scientific truths than personal visions.
These collections were known as wunderkammern, or cabinets of curiosities.
kammer 2.1 is a 21st-Century Wunderkammer. Each piece in the collection advances an
individual vision, a curious interpretation that eludes standard categorization. Combined
they develop into a collective narrative of the landscape, a story that is never told the
same way twice.
Visitors centers at natural parklands often feature inherently dull exhibits. Their use
of art as a means of interpretation is generally limited to basketry, pottery, and quilts.
Digital media has the potential to become the new folk art. The widespread proliferation
of consumer electronics and software make it a practical option for collecting works from
and displaying it for the general public.
Interface
Kammer editions are interactive displays that house collections of digital video,
animation, and slideshows. Visitors who are somewhat familiar with website navigation
should be able to browse the content intuitively while remaining uncertain of what they
might find. Online access is optional, but not recommended.
Content
The artist and guest collaborators create region-specific content for each commissioned
kammer edition. In a sense, this base content serves as an inspirational model for visitor-
generated content. Curators ultimately decide how to acquire new works to add to their
display. As their collection grows, they will also be responsible for keeping it organized.
This task requires minimal computer skills and a complete disregard for boundaries set
by venerable departments of academia.
Venue
Kammer prototypes were tested in contemporary art galleries in Kentucky, New Mexico,
Minnesota, and Illinois. Considering the main objectives, however, a nature center is
preferable. Enhancing appreciation for public lands is a primary goal. Half the battle is
attracting audiences who wouldn't otherwise set foot in a natural parkland.
An equally important goal is to expose contemporary art to those who don’t often venture
into trendy urban districts. Given the mutually exclusive territories of our target
audiences, it might be worth noting that drawing art crowds to a nature center is less
challenging than luring outdoorsy folk into an art gallery.
Concept
Park interpretation is an expression of the land’s natural, cultural, and historic
significance. Each department is further dissected and subclassified under narrower
fields of study. The rigid order we impose on the landscape is necessary for organizing
the mass amounts of information we harvest from it.
Long before the development of specialized studies, the natural world was evaluated by
subjective criteria. Methodologies were imaginative. Unfamiliar specimens were collected
and displayed in ways that revealed less about scientific truths than personal visions.
These collections were known as wunderkammern, or cabinets of curiosities.
kammer 2.1 is a 21st-Century Wunderkammer. Each piece in the collection advances an
individual vision, a curious interpretation that eludes standard categorization. Combined
they develop into a collective narrative of the landscape, a story that is never told the
same way twice.
kammer 2.1
Wunderkammer Redux [2006] a 6-minute demo from the original module.
You can return to this page at any time by clicking K21C.
You can return to this page at any time by clicking K21C.
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