Bjørn Laursen

Interactive Installations for Spatial Access to Artistic Sketchbooks

A book is a book – or is it? With present-day, affordable technology, we can scale a book to become a spatial object, or even a space in itself, of almost arbitrary size. We describe our design of and experiences with a generic interactive installation, called Viskbook, that provides a convincing illusion of oversize books, allowing the spectator to turn over the pages using natural and intuitive gestures. It provides a new media for exhibiting books in museums and elsewhere. It can be used for vulnerable and irreplaceable unique books, that otherwise would remain in the safe-box, and for books that may have no non-virtual counterpart and which may go beyond what we normally expect from a book. Viskbook has been used successfully for displaying historical sketchbooks, integrated in thematic art exhibitions, and for experimental books based on our own artistic material selected. An important conclusion is that oversizing a book, in addition to an enhanced visibility, creates a novel and spatial experience of the book. Received on 31 August 2016; accepted on 15 June 2017; published on 03 July 2017

Widening the Experience of Artistic Sketchbooks

Artist’s sketchbooks may provide important insights into the genesis of the finished works and may also contain artworks that are at least as interesting and sometimes even more fascinating and fresh. However, sketchbooks are delicate and problematic exhibits; displaying them in a showcase leaves at most two pages visible, and allowing visitors to handle the books does not make sense. This paper describes an interactive, virtual sketchbook technology intended for the display of books which, at the same time, is faithful to the original book and provides an enhanced spatial experience, a gigantic pocketbook which you may seem to enter spatially and bodily. The installation has been shown at The Italian Culture Institute in Copenhagen (2011), two public libraries (2012–13), two Danish art museums (2014), and the Book Fair in Bella Center, Copenhagen (2015).

From archaeological findings over scale models and pencil drawings to digital images

The “Eye of Wodan” is a multimedia installation at Ribe Museum, Denmark, which tells the story of the life of the Danish Vikings in the period 720–980 AD. A central part of the installation is an interactive screen, which enables visitors to explore drawings of Viking age scenes on a canvas larger in size than the screen.