A Formal Modeling Proposal

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Antonio Lieto; Rossana Damiano; Vanessa Michielon. Conceptual Models for
Intangible Art. MIMESIS JOURNAL. vol. 3 (2) pp: 70-78.
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70 MJ, 3, 2 (2014)
Conceptual Models for Intangible Art
A formal modeling proposal
Antonio Lieto, Rossana Damiano, Vanessa Michielon
Formal Models for Cultural Heritage
Cultural heritage has a long tradition in conceptual modeling, rooted in the cata-
loguing activities brought about by cultural institutions and national entities since
the xix century (Chan 2007). The development of archival science has promoted
the establishment of comprehensive schemata for describing heritage entities, with
standards emerging at the international level for bridging the differences among the
national systems. Cataloguing activities, especially when carried out with a scien-
tific approach, imply underlying conceptual models, than can be expressed in an
explicit way using formal representation tools (Doerr 2003). With the advent of the
digital era, then, the need for explicit representation has moved from description of
artworks to the definition of processes and actors that characterize cultural heritage1
in search for a shared, comprehensive view of the domain.
Issued by the International Council of Museums (Icom), the CidoC Conceptual
Reference Model (CidoC-CrM) is intended as a “common language for domain
experts and implementers”2
, specifically aimed at the design of information systems
(Doerr 2003). Developed along more than two decades by the CidoC Documentation
Standards Working Group (dswG), CidoC-CrM3
is currently released in a semantic
format that supersedes the previous conceptual model encoded in the relational
data model. In this paper, we discuss the use of this model for representing the
“intangible” artworks taken as case studies in the Invisibilia project, and describe
its adaptation to the case studies through some examples, using formal ontologies
as the representation tool. We then illustrate and exemplify possible extensions
to the model aimed at representing the traits of the case studies that do not fall
within the boundaries of the model. Here, the label “intangible art” refers to the
contemporary artworks that are mainly characterized by performativity and inte-
ractivity, such as installations and public performances, rather than a set of cultu-
1
Processes concerning cultural heritage entities can be seen also in a narrative perspective (Damiano
& Lieto 2013).
2
<http://www.cidoc-crm.org/index.html>.
3
CidoC-CrM is also the iso standard 21127:2006.

MJ, 3, 2 (2014) 71
Mimesis Journal
ral practices as defined by Kirshenblatt-Gimblett in her discussion of “intangible
heritage” (2004). Also called “variable media art”, these artworks are characterized
by traits such as interactivity, co-creation, impermanence and intangibility among
others (Triphonova et al. 2008). Given the orientation to the regional heritage of the
project, the case studies also include more traditional artworks, issued from public
art initiative, characterized by a tight integration with the urban context.
Since Berners Lee’s manifesto of Semantic Web appeared in 2001 (Berners-Lee
et al. 2001), semantic technologies have proven their suitability for the dissemina-
tion of cultural heritage (Doerr 2009). The ontology languages designed as part of
the Semantic Web project allow conceptual models to be described in an unambi-
guous way, open to understanding and manipulation by human users and softwa-
re programs. Several research projects have explored the application of semantic
technologies to cultural heritage, among which one of the most representative is
the Finnish Culture Sampo project (Hyvönen etal. 2009). Conceived as a large-
scale demonstrator, Culture Sampo is a cultural heritage portal entirely relying on
a “mash up” of domain ontologies that encode all the relevant features of artworks,
from geographical data to craftsmanship.
Formal ontologies consist of logic-based descriptions of the concepts of a domain
and of their relations. Classes represent entity types (e.g., the notion of artwork
may be represented by the Artwork class) and are arranged in a hierarchy from the
most general to the more specific (e.g., Painting or Sculpture). Classes, at any level
of the hierarchy, contain sets of exemplars, or individuals (e.g., Picasso’s painting
entitled Guernica may be represented by an individual belonging to the Artwork
class). Relations, or properties, are defined over pairs of classes, and are instan-
tiated on the individuals that populate the ontology. For example, the individual
named Guernica may be connected to the individual named Picasso (instance of
the Artist class) by the painted by relation. A class may also have properties that
attach data to the individuals belonging to it, such as a creation date or a country of
origin for an artwork. Finally, classes can have necessary and sufficient conditions
that are the object of automatic reasoning processes. For example, a Painter may be
defined as an Artist having created at least one artwork of type Painting. Although
formal ontologies can be exploited to develop large knowledge bases by leveraging
the expressive power of their logical foundations, here we are concerned only with
their use for conceptual modeling, and we will not discuss the use of formal onto-
logies to create information systems for cultural heritage.4
4
However, it is worth remembering that the interoperability of knowledge representation systems is a
main concern of semantic technology designers, beside the interoperability of conceptual models, and
that semantic knowledge bases can be easily published on the web following the paradigm of Linked
Data (Bizer et al. 2009).

72 MJ, 3, 2 (2014)
Suitability of the existing models for Invisibilia
The top level of CidoC-CrM includes five classes: TimeSpan, Place, Dimension,
PersistentItem and TemporalEntity. ManMadeThing (subclass of PersistentItem)
encompasses the classes for representing PhysicalObjects and ConceptualObjects,
further subdivided into the PropositionalObject and SymbolicObject classes. The
TemporalEntity class includes the Event class, a subclass of which is the Activity
class. The Actor class, encompassing participants to Events, is a subclass of the
PersistentItem class.
The documentation of CidoC illustrates the functioning of the model through an
example: the bronze statue “Monument to Balzac” by Auguste Rodin. The monu-
ment itself is represented an Information Carrier (i.e., it is an instance of the
Information Carrier class, subclass of the above mentioned ManMadeThing) and
it depicts a Person, Honoré de Balzac. The statue has type is “bronze” and it was
produced by a Production process (the bronze casting, a type of Activity) carried
out by a Legal Body (the firm that made the bronze casting, “Rudier et Fils”). The
bronze casting continued a previous Production (the plaster modeling) carried out
by a Person, Auguste Rodin. As this example illustrates, CidoC-CrM is not limited
to the representation of the internal structure of the artwork, but it opens to the
reference to real world entities that are not intrinsically related to the art domain,
such as physical persons, historical events, etc. It also represents in a fine-grained
way the production processes that have originated the artwork and the roles played
in them by various actors, including individuals and groups.
Although CidoC-CrM is mainly devoted to the representation of physical artworks
and of the processes involved in their preservation and dissemination, the notion of
“event” encoded CidoC-CrM can be easily adapted to the domain of intangible art. In
particular the Event class enables the representation of the creation activities, which
extend from the traditional ones (like the bronze casting in the example above) to
the production processes of “intangible” art, such as installations and performan-
ces. These art forms typically include new media production such as video making,
pre-visualization and interaction design, conducted by different agents with roles
such as director, illustrator, multimedia designer; sometimes, in the Invisibilia case
studies, the production is formalized in collective creative sessions, or workshops.
The Event class, intended as process, is also employed to represent the performa-
tive aspects of the artworks, such as the artists’ performances and the interaction
of audience with the artwork. As it will be discussed below, the complexity of the
production process in contemporary art advocates a more sophisticate model that
accounts for serialization and reproduction.
The adaptation of CidoC-CrM to invisibiLia has pointed out two other possible uses
of this class, possibly not envisaged at the design time of the model. The first
concerns the representation of the relations between a work (or performance, or
manifestation) and its documentation, which is the result of the process of docu-

MJ, 3, 2 (2014) 73
Mimesis Journal
menting the art, a practice that is strongly encouraged by today’s availability of
digital media. In Invisibilia, they prevalently consist of pictures taken during the
design activity and videos shot during a performance. The second use of this class
is the process of providing explicit instructions for the maintenance of the artwork,
a step that is often necessary due to the more transitory nature of many contempo-
rary artworks, which involve disposable components such as light bulbs or neon
tubes. Documentation and maintenance are highly relevant issues for the imperma-
nent components that characterize contemporary art.
Finally, the case studies of Invisibilia are often characterized by reproducibility,
since the artwork design can be reproduced several times in different contexts by
changing actors, with variations brought in by the different context and partici-
pants. A performance, for example, can be carried out more than once by adhe-
ring to the same score. In interactive installations, the interaction with users is
distributed over several sessions, normally characterized by a predefined flow.
Aspects such as reproducibility and serial production are dealt with by the model
known as “Functional Requirements for Bibliographical Records” (Frbr), descri-
bed by O’Neill (O’Neill 2002). Designed for capturing “the underlying semantics
of bibliographic information”5,
Frbr encompasses four main entities, mainly Work,
or abstract ideation, Expression, its encoding in a specific language such as text
or music, Manifestation, its embodiment in a concrete representation, and Item,
a single manifestation in an editorial process. Doty (2013) suggests that Frbr is
suitable to account for the problem of variation in performance: “The problem of
variation is the problem of how, if a Work is defined by all the examples of it, we
can determine that two examples that are not identical are nonetheless part of the
same Work. This problem is especially pronounced in live performance, which, by
its very nature, has the potential for each of its examples to be unique” (Doty 2013).
In Invisibilia, we include the Frbr model in the ontology, relying on the mapping of
the Frbr model onto the CidoC-CrM proposed by the Frbroo working group (Doerr
& LeBoeuf 2007). According to this proposal, the notion of Work corresponds to
the ConceptualObject class in CidoC-CrM, and different versions of the same work
are represented as instances of the Manifestations class, which corresponds to the
SymbolicObject class in CidoC-CrM.
Extending cIdoc to represent intangible art: a proposal
The ontology developed for the Invisibilia project extends the CidoC-CrM ontolo-
gy (Doer 2003) to the world of the intangible component of contemporary art.
Contemporary art, as surveyed by Invisibilia, is characterized by the commixture of
5
<http://www.cidoc-crm.org/frbr_inro.html>.

74 MJ, 3, 2 (2014)
installations (often impermanent), performances and interactive elements. Specific
inadequacies of CidoC-CrM emerged regarding the modeling needs of interactive
installations and live performances. Our proposal relies on the introduction of new
properties to describe the “invisible” components of contemporary artworks and to
put them in relation. In particular, in our case studies, we have provided an exten-
sion regarding both the process-based components of the intangible art production
(e.g. by modelling the creative processes involved in the realization of intangible
art) and the aesthetic design elements that are at the core of specific expressions of
contemporary art (e.g. in the case of live performances).
Previous extensions of the CidoC-CrM models can be found in the literature. For
example, Theodoridou et al. (2010) proposed an extension aimed at modeling the
notion of reliability and provenance in the transfers of possession of cultural herita-
ge items. In this case, the extension regards mainly the modelling of roles involved
in such processes of over time.Arelevant extension of CidoC-CrM, for the Invisibilia
project, is given by Ng etal.(2008) where the notion of performance (not present in
the original model of CidoC-CrM) is proposed for the integration into the ontology. A
limitation of this contribution, however, is given by the fact that the integration into
the existing ontology of the concepts required to describe performances is provided
by the authors. In particular, this extension is limited to the exclusive introduction
of the class “Performance” in the ontology, without any specification about the
relation that such type of class (and therefore the members of such class) entertain
with the other ontological components (actors, roles, processes etc.). In our case,
we have treated the modeling of the Manifestation (intended as in Frbr terminolo-
gy) of live performances as particular events enjoying a subset of the whole attri-
butes associated to the artistic manifestations. In particular, the performances may
still be described in terms of constitutive elements characterizing their status (e.g.
they may take place in particular places, may be directed by some persons, etc.)
but they cannot be directly qualified in terms of physical components (e.g. a perfor-
mance is not “composed by” stones) as the standard manifestations. This modelling
style, along with other examples, is described in the next section.
Examples
In this section, we briefly report three different modelling examples regarding the
representation of an installation, a live performance and, finally, a physical modern
artwork in the extended version of CidoC-CrM that we designed for the Invisibilia
project.
Let us consider the representation of the installation, “Nomadi” displayed at the
pav museum in Turin, on two different occasions, in December 2013 and February
2014. In our approach, the idea underlying the installation (Installation1, instan-
ce of ConceptualObject/Work class) is connected with two different realizations

MJ, 3, 2 (2014) 75
Mimesis Journal
(Version1 and Version2 respectively, instances of the Manifestation/SymbolicObject
class, see the yellow arrow in figure) by the hasManifestation property. Each
version takes part into two different events (Workshop and Revision, yellow arrows
in the figure) that took place in different locations, while the idea takes part to both
events. The whole picture of such situation is reported in the Figure 1.
The model of the installation Nomadi was, then, enriched with information (not
shown in the figure) about:
theCreationactivitiesthatgeneratedtheevents,suchastheWorkshop(whichcontai-
ned video editing, graphic animation and interaction design as its sub-activities);
the Physical components encompassed by the idea and its manifestations, such as
scenery, hardware and multimedia devices;
the Agents who participated in the various activities, with roles such as designer,
actor, etc.;
the Location of the events (e.g., PAV - for the main event) and the Time of the
events (e.g., November 5th 2012 for the main event);
the reference to the Documentation (e.g. pictures documenting the design activity)
and the link to the maintenance manual (where present) for the manifestations.
The same approach, which allows us to differentiate between the physical and
the process-based aspects involved in the realization and the fruition of the arti-
stic artifacts – along all the phases individuated by Frbr, Work, Expression and
Manifestation – has been used to model a more complex artistic event, namely
“Costruire Comunità” by Marinella Senatore. Such event took place at the Castello
di Rivoli on 24th of November 2014, and consisted of a live artistic parade execu-
ted by an organized multitude of citizens and groups along the streets of the city
of Rivoli. In Invisibilia, this event has been modelled as a complex work, since
Figure 1. Work – The ontological description of Manifestation and Processes in Nomadi.
Boxes represent individuals, dashed lines represente their relations, or properties.

76 MJ, 3, 2 (2014)
different creative and design processes have been individuated as being part of the
whole idea of “Parata”. For example: in the case of “Costruire Comunità”, the Work
(Idea_Parata) also includes a more simple work based on the fact that a consti-
tutive design element of the event (used for the artistic fruition in absentia of the
event itself) is given by the necessity that it is filmed. Therefore, the general idea of
the Parata is splitted in two subworks. Idea_Video_Parata (Work 1) is the starting
point for the design of the creative processes regarding the video of the parade,
while Idea_Performance (Work 2) is the work for the live event itself that must be
then described, according to Frbr, in terms of Expression and Manifestation (see
Figure 2).
For what concerns the modelling of the expression level of a live manifestation
it was necessary to introduce in CidoC-CrM the concept of Score as a particular
subclass of the Design and Procedure classes needed for the realization of artistic
live performances. This introduction allowed us also to deal with the above mentio-
ned problem of variations (Doty 2013).
A third modelling example, different from the two already seen, was the model-
ling of a physically realized contemporary public art. Let consider the idea of the
artwork “Fontana” (Fountain) by the artist Mario Merz. The Fountain of Mario
Merz is a public artwork in Turin, released in 2002, that has the shape of igloo
with the surface consisting of a puzzle of plates of slate, emerging from a rectan-
gular water tab, with water jets, located in a road widening; four red neon lights,
that light up at evening, mark the cardinal points.6
The artwork is an instance of
PropositionalObject/Work class, and is described by a ProceduralPrescription
(executive specifications) to which it is connected via the property isRealizedIn.
The manifestation of the idea (instance of the SymbolicObject/Manifestation class)
6
«The igloo structure has been frequently revisited by Merz, since 1968, with essential forms, provid-
ing an idea of living a place, a balanced architecture, with an internal/external space, that enlarges
according to life necessities». (from the records of the Municipality of Turin)
Figure 2. Complex Works for artistic performances in Costruire Comunita

MJ, 3, 2 (2014) 77
Mimesis Journal
is given by an installation made of plates of slate and neon tubes, whose size,
layout, etc., also described in the ontology. The physical artwork, then, is related to
its maintenance activity (instance of MantainanceActivity), documented by some
specific document (instance of the MaintenanceDocumentation class), and distinct
(for time, location, actors) from the CreationActivity that originated the monument,
which has a different Time and Location. Again, we have used the class Score with
the goal of representing scripted, complex artistic performances. In the case of
Merz’s Fountain, this class is simply employed to describe the enlightening of neon
lights in the evening. With respect to the invisible artistic productions the informa-
tion encoded in this case also represents in detail the physical components of the
artistic artwork. On the other hand, an element that, from a modelling perspective,
is in common between the intangible artistic productions and the physical ones
(represented, in our case, by the monument described above) regards the repre-
sentation of the design processes (transversal to all the phases of Work, Expression
and Manifestation) through which the realization of the artistic creation is obtai-
ned. In particular, the description of the design cycle (and of its possible multiple
loops) involving, at the different stages, the conceptualization of the artistic idea
(Work), its relation with the design elements through which the idea is implemented
(Expression) and, finally, the realization of the artistic production according to the
defined design (Manifestation) can be a symptom that the real invisible red thread
connecting intangible and tangible arts is represented by the possibility of model-
ling, in a diachronic perspective, all the processes, the actions, the actors, the roles,
the documents (digital or not) and the physical components involved in the artistic
creation of contemporary art.
Conclusion
In this paper, we proposed to adopt and extend the CidoC-CrM conceptual model to
describe some of the traits of the contemporary artworks included in the Invisibilia
project. Well aware of the caveat expressed by Schwartz & Cook (2002) that
“Archives are social constructs. Their origins lie in the information needs and
social values of the rulers, governments, businesses, associations, and indivi-
duals who establish and maintain them.” we adhered to the vision, started by the
Semantic Web Project, that ontology languages can foster the emergence of shared,
unambiguously described conceptual models and that this paradigm applies also to
cultural heritage. The pivot of our modeling proposal is the notion of process, that
we employed to describe both the articulation of the artistic creation processes in
Invisibilia, often of performative nature, and the interaction with the audience, with
some extensions aimed at grasping the use of new media technologies. Inspired
by the analysis of the case studies of the project, the data driven methodology by

78 MJ, 3, 2 (2014)
which the model was designed and validated, is the primary evidence in favor of its
future applicability to exemplars that share the main traits scrutinized by Invisibilia.
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