FACTUM FOUNDATION AT PROTECTING THE PAST CONFERENCE, SHARJAH - DECEMBER 2018

On December 6th, Factum Foundation was invited to the Protecting the Past Conference, to talk jointly with Art Jameel and the Royal Commission of Al Ula about the importance of digital recording in cultural heritage preservation. On this occasion, the three institutions presented their latest collaboration, a project aiming at transferring technology and know-how to local communities.
Click here for further details about the conference.

Photogrammetry Training at Al-Ula

Factum's Otto Lowe spent two weeks in the town of Al-Ula, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, teaching a group of fifteen locals how to record cultural heritage in 3D using photogrammetry. This collaborative pilot project between the Factum Foundation, Art Jameel, and the Royal Commission of Al-Ula (RCU) involved the recording of three ancient petroglyph sites.

Read more about it here.

Recording an avant-garde masterpiece

In March 2018, a Factum Foundation team was in Moscow to record two versions of the famed Malevich painting Black Square, 1915 and Black Square, 1929. In a joint initiative with the Tretyakov Gallery, where the works are held, both the Lucida 3D scanner and panoramic photography were utilised to document what is considered the most iconic work of the Russian avant-garde.

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Digital and physical reconstruction of the vandalised sacred cave of Kamukuwaká

The cave of Kamukuwaká, an important sacred petroglyph site representing the cosmogony of the inhabitants of Upper-Xingu (Mato Grosso, Brasil) and registered national monument has been intentionally destroyed. Culture is under threat and digitisation of Cultural Heritage is the most effective way to monitor its condition. Following the recording of the vandalised sacred cave, Factum Foundation is now working on its digital reconstruction in virtual and physical form. Learn more.

Columbia University's Studio trip, Seville

During a 3-day intensive trip in early October, students from Columbia University and Factum Foundation's scanning specialists carried out the recording of a selection of art and architecture elements of the great Casa de Pilatos in Seville. Adam Lowe and Carlos Bayod's Studio on Advanced Preservation Technology programme will ultimately accompany the students in the processing of the obtained data.

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Recording of the Al Ain Museum

In September 2018, a team from Factum Foundation travelled to the oasis city of Al Ain in the Abu Dhabi Emirate in order to record and digitise the exhibits of the Al Ain Museum. The museum, the oldest in the UAE, is being temporarily closed to allow its renovation and the construction of an additional museum building, with Factum commissioned by the Abu Dhabi Department for Culture and Tourism to document its variety of exhibits with photogrammetry and LiDAR laser scanning.
Read more.

Raphael's "Lo Spasimo"

The high-resolution colour recording of Raphael's "Lo Spasimo di Sicilia" ­was made possible by the Museo del Prado. This was the first step towards the creation of a reproduction of “Lo Spasimo” that will be displayed in the Palermitan monastery of Santa Maria dello Spasimo, where the painting hung until the middle of the 16th century. During its time in France in the 19th century, the painting was transferred from its wooden panel onto a canvas, a fact that Factum Foundation addresses with the ‘recreation’ of the painting on a rigid panel. Read more.

Rebuilding the Heraclitus Vessel

Factum first got involved in the rebuilding of the ferro-concrete Research Vessel Heraclitus, a hugely important and well-travelled research ship, in 2014, using FARO technology to prepare 3D visualisations of the hull. This year, Factum returned to conduct LiDAR recording in order to create a more wholly accurate and extensive 3D model of the ships structure.

Learn more here.

Facsimile of the Jamnitzer Bell at Strawberry Hill House

The extraordinary 'Cellini Bell' by Wenzel Jamnitzer (1507/1508 to 1585) was recorded in June 2018 at the British Museum in London. This highly intricate cast and chased silver bell was amongst the most difficult objects Factum Foundation has ever recorded. The exact facsimile will be included in the exhibition "Lost Treasure of Strawberry Hill" (20th October - 24th February 2019) in Twickenham.
Learn more.

News from Dagestan

A team from Factum Foundation is in Dagestan to install a new portable manuscript scanner for the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography in Makhachkala. The scanner will be taken on expeditions into Dagestan's mountains as part of a long-term campaign to digitise and study the thousands of Islamic manuscripts held by private collections in the region.

Read more about the project here.

Venice: Homo Faber, Veronese, workshop

During the exhibition Homo Faber (14-30 Sept. 2018) at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice, two works by Italian Renaissance painter Paolo Veronese were digitised with the Lucida 3D scanner, in collaboration with Open Care (Milan). The data, gathered before and after the diptych's restoration, will be used to inform and document the cleaning of the paintings. As part of this initiative, a practical workshop on surface 3D scanning was carried out on September 21st - applications open here.

Fundación Casa Ducal de Medinaceli

The recording of the tomb of Cardinal Tavera initiated a collaboration with the Fundación Casa Ducal de Medinaceli that is a great example of what is possible when different foundations work together to record, archive, analyse, preserve and communicate the importance of Cultural Heritage. The first stage of the work, the complete high-resolution recording of the tomb is now finalised. The captured data was processed using the photogrammetry software Reality Capture.
Read more.

Recording of 11 Shabti figurines from the tomb of Seti I

A team from Factum Foundation has started the photogrammetric recording of eleven shabti statuettes from the tomb of Seti I, part of the permanent collection of the Museo Civico Archeologico of Bologna (MCABo). Ten statuettes are made of wood and one of faïence. Highly artistic in quality and larger in size, the latter shows the sovereign with the regal nemes headdress, the usekh pectoral as well as wide bracelets on his wrists, dotted with cobalt blue on a ground lapis lazuli. Read more.

The Lucida Lab Milano recording J. B. Jackson's Chiaroscuro woodcuts

A team from the Lucida Lab Milano started the recording of J. B. Jackson's Chiaroscuro woodcuts, in Palazzo Sturm, Bassano del Grappa's Civic Museum. Palazzo Sturm is one of the few museums in Italy dedicated to showing every aspect of Remondini’s industrial process within the 16th and 17th centuries as well as the phases in the production of books, decorated papers, religious and popular print makings, games, optical views, etchings and woodcuts.
Read more on the Lucida Lab Milano.