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Artistic Interpretation of Digital Cultural Heritage
Moderated by: Fan Xiang and Victoria Szabo
Date and Time: April 25, 2025

Greenwich Mean Time, GMT Sat, Apr 26, 2025 at 1:00 am GMT
Vienna, Austria Sat, Apr 26, 2025 at 3:00 am CEST
London, United Kingdom Sat, Apr 26, 2025 at 2:00 am BST
New York, USA Fri, Apr 25, 2025 at 9:00 pm EDT
Chicago, USA Fri, Apr 25, 2025 at 8:00 pm CDT
Denver, USA Fri, Apr 25, 2025 at 7:00 pm MDT
Los Angeles, USA Fri, Apr 25, 2025 at 6:00 pm PDT
Beijing, China Sat, Apr 26, 2025 at 9:00 am CST
Brisbane, Australia Sat, Apr 26, 2025 at 11:00 am AEST

  Call for Particpation: https://forms.gle/Bh9jjtYNY3Jis9Gc6
  Deadline: April 1, 2025

Session Description:

How we present scenes from history is, ultimately, how we define history itself. The choices visual artists make in sourcing, composing, and styling historical imagery have a lasting impact on our understanding of the past.

Today, with vast cultural heritage information transformed into digital archives, artists have access to high-resolution, multidimensional data. Yet their work is more challenging than ever—they must determine which data, metaphors, technical workflows, and interaction methods to employ. Their goal: to create visuals that are not only comprehensible and reliable but also immersive and engaging.

In this session, we invite artists to share their stories of using digital archives to create for cultural heritage, whether portraying tangible heritage like historical sites or intangible aspects such as cultural memory and tradition.

Through these short presentations, we hope to open a dialogue on how digital archives and artistic interpretation come together to shape our perception of history in the digital age.



Moderator(s):
Fan Xiang

Fan Xiang is an interdisciplinary visualization designer, researcher, and educator at the forefront of digital humanities and data-driven storytelling. An Associate Professor at Tsinghua University, she specializes in creating intuitive visual narratives that bridge art, design, and culture. A recipient of the SIGGRAPH 2020 Best Art Paper Award, Fan has published widely on topics from pictogram design to interactive media, with her work exhibited globally. Her public design talks have attracted over 200,000 viewers, and her numerous publications in Chinese journals are frequently cited by young scholars across China, reflecting her impact in the academic community.

Victoria Szabo

Victoria Szabo is a Research Professor of Visual and Media Studies at Duke University, and directs the PhD in Computational Media, Arts & Cultures and the Certificate in Information Science + Studies. Her work focuses on immersive and interactive media for digital humanities and computational media art. She is co-lead of Psychasthenia Studio, and artists’ games collective. She was Chair of Art Papers at SIGGRAPH Asia 2023 in Sydney and will be Art Papers Chair for SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 in Tokyo. She is also Chair of the Art Advisory Group for ACM SIGGRAPH and a member of the Digital Arts Community Committee.