GreenGLAM – Data Sculptures for Cultural Heritage

AI-Driven Data Sculptures to Promote Sustainability Content of Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAMs)

Scientists predict dramatic consequences unless stronger actions are taken to reduce carbon emissions. The observable actions, however, are not commensurate with the observable threat. The reasons for this discrepancy are the lack of collective awareness (i.e., the perception of climate change as a geographically and temporally distant risk) and the lack of personal efficacy (i.e., the belief that their actions will not make a difference). Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAMs) are uniquely positioned to address this discrepancy through sustainability-focused collections and exhibitions. GreenGLAM will offer citizens and tourists new ways to identify and explore such offerings, enriched by data-driven immersive experiences.

Virtual Data Sculptures

For this purpose, we introduce AI-driven data sculptures as a novel concept for visualising the sustainability content of GLAMs in mobile, Web-based and Augmented Reality (AR) environments. Such data sculptures will require the semantic processing of multiple content streams, including GLAM collection metadata and the public discussion (news, social media) about them. GreenGLAM will automatically extract factual and affective knowledge about GLAMs and their collections. It will highlight their relationship to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), aiming to encourage further exploration and follow-up visits. Virtual Data Sculptures will help cultural organisations increase their visitors’ sustainability knowledge, trigger co-creation processes and promote the transition to more sustainable lifestyle choices in line with the SDGs.

Target Groups

Disseminated and exploitation activities will focus on a wide range of cultural institutions. Professional stakeholders can also gain unprecedented transparency regarding the published content and activities of the GLAM sector. GreenGLAM will present an evolving window into the perceptions of sustainability content, revealing attitudes and opinions expressed in online media, both professional (journalistic) and public (social media). Such a rich feedback channel is crucial for GLAMs to further promote their collections and exhibitions and to attract new visitors – especially outside their traditional target groups.

GreenGLAM Research Objectives

To achieve the goals outlined above, GreenGLAM will pursue the following six research objectives:

1. Develop state-of-the-art AI-based methods to extract and enrich SDG-related factual knowledge within and associated with GLAMs in Austria, and conceptualize it in a domain-specific knowledge graph.
2. Develop language models to capture and represent affective categories along multiple dimensions of public opinion toward the GLAMs’ communication of SDG topics like Climate Action, Clean Energy, or Sustainable Cities.
3. Propose novel visual metaphors that combine live data streams of factual and affective knowledge in the form of dynamically updated “Virtual Data Sculptures” that communicate the GLAM’s associations with the SDGs.
4. Provide GLAMs with access to an SDG decision support dashboard. This dashboard uses intuitive data visualizations and reporting mechanisms to show them how they are being associated with SDGs and highlight gaps.
5. Use these associations and gaps to guide written communication around the SDGs, driven by advanced AI-based predictive analytics and recommendation algorithms in a Web-based communication tool for GLAMs.
6. Provide GLAM visitors and the general public with web-based access to virtual data sculptures, the possibility of interaction in AR, and intuitive content co-creation. This will allow users to influence the visual appearance of data sculptures through their interactions.

Impact and Cultural Heritage Applications

GreenGLAM will provide professional users with this integrated view and decision support via a Web-based visual analytics dashboard that integrates GLAM collection data and visitor interests, using deep learning models for language understanding and topic prediction. As such, GreenGLAM represents a novel data-centric approach to GLAM management, benefiting both visitors and the GLAMs themselves. The project will automatically classify aggregated GLAM content according to its relevance for the 17 SDGs, building on webLyzard’s earlier work for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Virtual Data Sculptures will require radical innovation in scalable metadata enrichment, deep learning networks for language understanding and predictive analytics, and advances in data visualisation and their integration into augmented reality applications. These innovations will reveal how past, current and future events and exhibitions relate to specific SDGs. This will help attract new target groups to cultural attractions and show how to promote SDGs most effectively to increase awareness and nudge GLAMs and their visitors to reflect on and adopt more sustainable practices.

GreenGLAM Project

Project Start: 01 June 2024; Coordinator: MODUL Technology.

Project Partners: webLyzard technology, “Data Intelligence Offensive”, OpenGLAM.at, Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien Institut für Bildende und mediale Kunst, VRVis Zentrum für Virtual Reality und Visualisierung Forschungs.

Funding. GreenGLAM is supported by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility and Technology (BMK) through the AI for Green Programme – FFG No FO999910266.