Introduction to the Erasmus+ Project CHARTER | Wolfgang Baatz

As an introduction of the Erasmus+ Blueprint project CHARTER an overview will be given in terms of project genesis, organization, programme and working schedule. The European and international financial statistics which CHARTER has to take into account will be named and the implications and impact explained. The findings of the research undertaken by CHARTER until now will be presented, which include also some fundamental considerations and definitions which were developed in the course of the project.

about the project
Cultural Heritage Action to Refine Training, Education and Roles (CHARTER)

Institute for Conservation - Restauration | EU Erasmus+ Sector Skills Alliances,
01/2021 – 12/2024

Wolfgang Baatz, Lluis Bonet (University of Barcelona)
Karin Riegler

CHARTER, the European Cultural Heritage Skills Alliance, brings together and represents the whole range of the cultural heritage sector in Europe. We strive towards making apparent the value of cultural heritage and creating a resilient and responsive sector. We work towards creating a lasting, comprehensive strategy that will guarantee Europe has the necessary cultural heritage skills to support sustainable societies and economies, including transversal competences such as digital/technological and green/blue economy skills.

The consortium of 47 partners represents some of the top education and training institutions, organisations, networks and employers of the European cultural heritage sector. They have joined forces to professionalise the cultural heritage sector and combat the lack of statistical recognition of the sector as an economic force.

Weblink
https://charter-alliance.eu

Project partners
21 full members, 7 affiliate partners and 19 associate members, of 14 EU states

Salon of Open Secrets | Patrícia J. Reis, Stefanie Wuschitz*

›Salon of Open Secrets‹ is a Citizen Project grounded in our arts-based research project ›Feminist Hacking: Building Circuits as an Artistic Practice‹. It addresses young people under 18 who align with Global Climate and Environmental causes and wish to contribute to a conversation on more ethical ways to generate, use and repair electronics.

In order to introduce complex issues revolving around extraction, exploitation and contamination, in particular within the production circle of hardware we came up with an interactive storytelling game. It connects the player to an avatar of an existing activist in one of the countries affected by e-waste, from Ghana, Nepal, Mexico, Cuba and Singapore. The participants of our workshop, aka Citizen Scientists, worked with us in several hands-on sessions with the ›Ethical Hardware Kit‹, a backpack created during our PEEK project, full of materials, tools and electronic elements to build fair trade hardware. The participants were empowered to try to find reusable treasures within and draw new inspiration from broken hardware.

about the project
Salon of Open Secrets

Institute for Education in the Arts | FWF Top Citizen Science (TCS133), 11/2022 – 10/2023

Stefanie Wuschitz

Patrícia J. Reis

It is an open secret that hardware operating on our smart devices contains not only plastic, but also conflict materials such as silver, tungsten, tin, tantulum and gold. Technology is therefore not neutral. These resources are mined in conflict regions, assembled to electric circuits under harmful labour conditions and mostly ending up in contaminating landfills. This pollution is best understood as an enactment of ongoing colonial relations to land.

Arts-based research methods seize artistic practice to unpack complexity. Through opening up our artistic research project to citizens we want to make this phenomenon tangible. Intersecting Art and Science needs to be an experience of empowerment, of encouragement to find new ways. This Citizen Science project tackles sensitive issues through an Interactive KIT and a colourful 2D game that introduces the player to alternative technologies.

Weblink
https://www.feministhacking.org

https://www.salonofopensecrets.at

Project partners
Vienna Museum of Science and Technology

Visual Efficiency | Katharina Steidl

The topic of my investigation is the pictorial representation of knowledge and its impact in the time period between 1920 and 1950. This investigation will examine three previously unexplored cases in the US – The Museum of Modern Art and its Travelling Exhibition Department, Sweet’s Catalog Research Office and the US Military – in the areas of picture pedagogics and information design by employing cultural, visual, design and museum study methods. My objective consists of developing a comprehensive sketch of the cultural history of the Schaubild. Thereby, I shall analyse said cases in-depth and interweave them with the rationalization principles of scientific management. The central thesis being pursued is that working methods such as the ›flow chart or the Schaubild‹, which were developed in the field of management studies and in exhibition situations, were transferred into other disciplinary fields, such as graphic design, where graphical and operational thinking methods resulted in the idea of ›visual efficiency‹. This concept involves the organization of the picture plane according to standardized design principles, which should suit the needs of the intended user.

Heretofore, there has been notable research with respect to Otto Neurath’s Isotype system, his visual education system and his statistical ancestors. Nevertheless, hardly any studies have focused on the situation in the United States, its so called ›Visual Education Movement‹ or the general question of visual communication and its knowledge transfer during war time, a period when visual displays and manuals were produced on a broad scale. Thus, the aim of the proposed project is to close this gap.
The intention is, therefore, to establish a basic historical understanding of visual communication as it manifests itself in exemplary locations such as museums, factories, design offices and military bases. In particular, special attention shall be paid to the medium of the Schaubild, which has served as a didactic display form in exhibitions, as an operational diagram in manufacturing plants, as a functional design catalogue and as an instructive element in the armed forces. Seen from the perspective of praxeology, it is thus a question of more closely defining the specific ways in which pictures instead of texts were used to explain facts.

about the project
Schaubilder. Operative Images and Visual Communication

Institute for Art Theory and Cultural Studies | ÖAW APART-GSK, 03/2020 – 10/2024

Katharina Steidl

The topic of my investigation is the pictorial representation of knowledge and its impact in the time period between 1920 and 1950. This investigation will examine various previously unexplored cases in the United States in the areas of picture pedagogics and information design by employing cultural, visual and museum study methods.

My objective consists of developing a comprehensive cultural history of the ›Schaubild‹, thus embracing image media that offered visual guidance or visualization in the form of diagrams or graphics on display boards. Thereby, I shall analyze said cases in-depth and interweave them with the rationalization principles of scientific management. The central thesis being pursued is that working methods such as the ›flow chart‹, which were developed in the field of management studies, were transferred into other disciplinary fields, such as graphic design, where operational thinking methods resulted in the idea of ›visual efficiency‹. This concept involves the organization of the picture plane according to standardized design principles.