Discover PERCEIVE

PERCEIVE aims at advancing the digital capability of scientists and cultural institutions through a service-based AI architecture and toolkit, and by developing a new design theory for on-site and remote VR/AR/MR experiences, based on the concepts of “Care”, “Accessibility”, and “Authenticity”, with and for the creative industries, expanding the access to Cultural Heritage and Art outside museums for wider integration with society.

Coloured collections are a priority due to their high fragility, requiring shared methods to preserve and exhibit them. For instance, textiles fade within only 10 years, and only minute traces of the original polychromy on classical statues remain. The complexity of their study, especially the attempts at reconstructing their original appearance, and the significance of properly communicating these to future generations are also pivotal concerns.

This will support the shaping of a European common identity around the concepts of “care” and “diversity” while simultaneously strengthening the digital market for the creative industries. The PERCEIVE project addresses the dual needs of better preserving and communicating coloured artworks and, at the same time, improving and speeding up scientific process results, which could be employed to maximize visitors’ experience with a variety of digital coloured collections, including those for paintings, antique sculptures, tapestries, garments, and born-digital artworks.

Following the coronavirus emergency, museums proved to lack the needed digital policy that would guarantee more sustainability through remote access for visitors. Our expected outcomes include new services, tools, and prototypes, such as a PERCEIVE Tool Kit bridged to an online, easy-to-use Service; PERCEIVE Experience Prototypes for visitors; and a PERCEIVE Design Tool Kit for designers, arts professionals, and educators.

Project Methodology

• Reconstructing the original perception of the coloured artworks obtaining new images, also considering the original environmental information and lighting, when possible.
• Predicting the future development of colour changes.
• Using the results of the reconstruction and prediction in interactive (onsite and online) prototypes (the experience solutions), and also in the definition of methodological guidelines for exhibiting the coloured collections.

Our Objectives

PERCEIVE will transform the way color in Digital Cultural Heritage and Digital Art is communicated, through a ground-breaking interdisciplinary approach to appearance and quality, defining a novel comprehensive framework for capturing, processing, assessing, representing, communicating, and reproducing colour images, to serve the current and future needs of stakeholders and individual users.

• Make heritage science results accessible for immediate use and further development to Creative Industry sectors, including Computer Graphics specialists, Exhibition and Light Designers, Game companies.
• Improve museums’ curatorial approaches to the study of coloured collections through a digital shared methodology and the use of digital practices to exhibit them.
• Improve colour reconstruction and prediction methodologies and workflow (reliable natural perception, colour reconstruction, light transfer, and colour change prediction).
• Widen the access and explore the use of coloured collections and digital artworks, involving visitors and citizens, both inside and outside museums, improving their understanding and at the same time increasing their engagement with experiences that could be perceived as “authentic”.
• European Citizens’ re-appropriation of Coloured Collections, increasing awareness of their fragility and importance, through the development of a “sense of care”, based on the sense of wonder, emotion, and embodiment.

Kick-off Event

The PERCEIVE project was officially launched on 6 March at the Auditorium of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples (MANN). The event, open to citizens, businesses, the scientific community, and cultural institutions, provided a unique occasion to explore the beauty, fragility, and challenges of colour reconstruction and conservation across a vast heritage of sculptures, paintings, textiles, photographs, and digital art.

Distinguished speakers representing 11 institutions from 8 countries, including four major museums – the MANN in Naples, the Munch Museum in Oslo, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Art Institute of Chicago – presented their activities, priorities, and collections. Their talks were followed by contributions from the five European research centres – CNR ISPC (coordinator, Italy), Fraunhofer IGD (Germany), FORTH (Greece), NTNU (Norway), and HSLU (Switzerland) – and three private companies: Anamnesia and Imki (France) and Hoverlay (USA). Together, they highlighted colour as the common denominator of diverse collections, past and present, and pointed to new pathways for discovery and re-appropriation by a wide public.

In the following days, on 7 and 8 March, the PERCEIVE partners met to address crucial research questions: “Is it possible to predict colour changes?” “How can we reconstruct lost colours?” and many others. These discussions laid the groundwork for a new approach to the study, conservation, and communication of coloured collections.