SEARCHER (2023) is an artistic-research project exploring the networked potential of digital collections as new forms of co-curation within museum spaces. This in-progress prototype consists of hybrid e-paper image atlases that allow the explicit, associative, and regenerative searching of museum collections and the saving of new object constellations as narrative readings.

SEARCHER is inspired by the image atlases of art historian Aby Warburg (1866-1929), a project in the 1920s that mapped out visual themes across time through ‘alliances of attraction.’ SEARCHER remediates the image atlas as dynamic ‘thinking spaces,’ where searchings and findings become a spatial, situated, and social act performed by museum professionals and visitors alike.

SEARCHER’s current research focuses on developing alternative methods to create relationships between heritage objects through machine learning techniques. The aim is to challenge the notion that searching the collection has finite boundaries and, instead, embrace the concept of the serendipitous encounter—finding something you were not initially searching for.

In partnership with Culture Center Delavski dom Trbovlje, Slovenia, and MAO, Museum of Architecture and Design, Slovenia. MAO collection © 2023 Museum of Architecture and Design. All rights reserved.

 Co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

https://searcher.studio/