MINOS

Threads of Knowledge

Verónica Perales and Fred Adam

Research Group for the College of Fine Arts,Universidad de Castilla la Mancha, España

Keywords: Museum, Threads, Knowledge, e-culture, Web Navigation, Internet, Virtual Museum, PDA, Minos,

Didactic Classroom, UBIK2, Indevol.

Abstract: Minos is a proposal developed within the project INDEVOL:NEM – Dinamic Interfaces Evolutive:

Navigation into Multidimensional Space- Knowledge is a series of virtual threads located in cultural spaces,

open to the public, which can be accessed through mobile phones, PDA, laptap computers or any other

technological device which can be connected to the web. Its purpose is to visualize information either in real

space or at a distance through the internet. It’s a tool for the future for e-culture focused on the expansion of

the classroom.

1 INTRODUCTION

Minos is a System that can be implemented with

either simple or sophisticated technology, from a

network of RFID titles to a complex system of

geopositioning or indoor spatial positioning. It can

also be linked with a special compass that in

addition to indicating directions registers the

position in which it is slanted. In addition it can be

used with a Augmented Reality device for

visualizing the threads. What these technologies

have in common is that they will be connected to a

local server by cable or WIFI which will serve as a

mediator between the user and the database in the

device. The use of the net WIFI permits the

extension of minos beyond the walls of the

institution, into public space. It permits the sharing

of information in the street or any other place with

internet access. “Beyond buildings transcending

their borders the threads extend knowledge from the

inside to the outside”.

2 MINOS. CONCEPTUAL BASES

In the maze of information there are invisible

threads that draw grids of knowledge. We cannot see

them but they’re there, around us.

Figure 1: Simulation using MINOS.

Minos is a proposition that speaks about

localized tissues and about the relational paths

between all the knowledge taken place in a specific

place. Also, as a multiplicity of Ariadna threads that

allow rediscovering experiences “threaded” by many

in a same space, “occupy the virtual presence of a

shared trace”.

These Ariadna threads are variable and

progressive because they are a medium of reading

and writing at the same time; each one is evolutive,

and is created from a first piece of information that

is susceptible of being complemented or updated by

other users. They are shared constructions of public

property at the users’ disposal to sustain the

spreading of common knowledge. With wireless

technology, visitors can, for example, save and share

via email a fragment of information or leave a

message associated with a painting, or simply, to a

part of the space that is set on the grid.

This filiform entanglement can be placed in

museums, galleries, libraries or any other

communication space and the threads can be

475

Perales V. and Adam F. (2007).

MINOS - Threads of Knowledge.

In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies, pages 475-478

DOI: 10.5220/0001292604750478

 SciTePress

visualized with a PDA, a mobile phone or a laptop

computer. Not only these are the technological tools

that allow us to “catch” the sequence-thread of the

works sited in the space but they also enable us to

catch the thread of the visitors’ comments or the

thread of a guided tour by an artist, a scientist or a

fisherman. The electronic device shows us

something that we cannot see but that is there. It is

the conscious and registered trace that has been left

by a specific “threader” user.

2.1 Functioning

The interface that allows our reading is the thread

itself. We move about in the space and the

multimedia thread scrolls as we move, giving us

access to a wide range of information associated

with the fragment or portion that we are going

through. The fluidity in the correspondence between

the virtual thread and the representation of the thread

in our screen is of most importance so that the user

can understand how it works. The immediacy of the

answer is crucial.

Figure 2: A thread’s node in a PDA screen.

2.2 Segments and Conjunctions

The interface allows us to move in depth in order to

have a global and detailed vision of the available

contents in the physical space. It is a ZOOM

movement on the screen associated with a horizontal

scroll that allows exploring the contents of each

thread.

Figure 3: Zoom levels in the thread.

The digital thread represents the different

relational and understanding proposals, associated

with the concrete physical space that we visit. The

digital thread slides in perfect synchronization with

the users movements.

“Geometrical conjunctions” show in the

interface, related to the nature of the segments in the

carried out combinations.

2.2.1 Mecano-Code

These geometrical elements develop from a hexagon

that can mutate into various other forms. The online

combination draws the extension and the articulation

of the memory segments.

Each element that composes the horizontal

thread is mobile and evolutive. Each form fulfils a

purpose such as pointing out an available database, a

guided tour, an 18

century manifesto or the

restoration techniques of a piece.

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Figure 4: Catalogue of conjunctions and segments.

Just like a DNA sequence, the thread has an

unbreakable basic structure. It has a key head,

”HEAD”, that could be for example: “Data Base on

fishing in Ireland”, followed by its description,

authorship and other links related to it. Then, the

hexagons can begin several parallel routes to one

same thread. They are forks that correspond to the

different sections, for example, a branch of “visual

documents”, and a branch of “textual description”.

Each rectangle is a data container that could be

either a text, an audio file, a video, or an image.

2.3 Web and Didactic Classroom

During the visit, the user can save the whole (or

part) of the contents, by dragging to the inferior

boxes, the rectangle representing the contents. This

operation allows creating a personal combination.

After choosing the contents considered to structure

that version are chosen, the user can, through the

PDA, the mobile phone, or the computer, send its

sequence to an email. The information sent, has a

specific format that can be decoded on the project’s

web page, when at home or in a Didactic Classroom.

His thread can be registered (if willing) in the

project’s archive so that other internauts can visit his

route. Apart from the information that the “official

threader” has linked in the visit, the web system

allows to attach another kind of information that will

be added to the first base of the “thread”. The user

can create new threads from zero, or can modify

existing ones, and save them as derived versions.

Therefore, when a visit is made to the Museum, one

can, not only see the information uploaded by an

expert (for example), on the database, but also

visualize documents that are considered do be

relevant and that have been linked. These documents

will logically come from other web servers.

The user can prepare his visit before going to the

Museum, and can upload the prepared information

to see associated contents, once there. This is a very

practical tool for a teacher that prepares the itinerary

for the visit to the Museum before going there with

his students. Museum and Didactic Classroom find a

consistent bond.

Figure 5: The user can make a previous visit based on the

system, before going to the Museum.

2.3.1 Web Application

A multimedia reader device, accessible on the

project’s website, and especially designed and

programmed to read MINOS’ multimedia threads,

serves us to visualize the previously existing

contents and to add new documents that are

considered to be relevant (edition).

The thread is nothing more than a small program,

of a few kilobits that holds the kind of information

and the reading order of the material from a related

database, like a bookmark collection.

Figure 6: Minos application on the web.

MINOS - Threads of Knowledge

477

We follow the threads that are a navigational

memory of other users, or generate a new

combination of coloured segments, variable in

length and contents.

3 UTOPIAN IDEAS ARE ROUND

We can imagine that all of Minos relational paths

converge into a central dome inside the space. This

dome allows us to analyze the connections between

the different filaments and get a detached view from

the tissue, so as to analyse, as Fuller pretended with

his Dymaxion Map, the repercussions, differences

and unlikenesses and possible solutions. The

Museum connects with the Didactic Classroom but

also with the world.

“Utopian ideas-like ‘Spaceship Earth’-are round,

multidimensional, interrelated: their archetypal map

is the Milky Way, the infinite constellations. But

rational thinking is instrumental, linear, it distorts:

and that’s exactly the problem with the Mercator

map, the most common world projection.

Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome,

created a ‘Dymaxion map’ to undo those

distortions.” (Holmes)

Fuller represents the earth as an icosahedrons

divided in 20 faces of triangular shape. The

geometrical structure is then displayed on a plan,

therefore avoiding, the polar and continent

deformations.

In 1967, in the Montreal’s Universal Exhibition,

Fuller worked in a shared problem-solving process

which he called “World Peace Game. « The basic

idea was simple: radical democracy. »Make the

world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest

possible time, through spontaneous cooperation,

without ecological offense or the disadvantage of

anyone.”(Holmes).

Figure 7: Dymaxion Map. Buckminster Fuller.

(artnet.com).

4 CONCLUSION

Technology ought be a tool that enables us to see further,

we can enhance our gaze with it, but we cannot allow it to

replace our senses and convert into an indispensable

prosthesis in our approach to the world and culture. Minos

makes the exploration of data related to cultural places

easier, showing the interweaving of links that surpasses

the contents of a specific nucleus. The devise that allows

us to reach this nucleus is not the aim of this research, it’s

just the means –restrained by the current technological

advances and budget limitations- that holds us back to go

deeper into the quest for knowledge.

Figure 8: Minos, conceived by UBIK2, within the project

I+D INDEVOL:NEM. 2006.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank the Spanish grant PCC-05-

005-2 from JCCM.

REFERENCES

Holmes, Brian. Cartography of Excess, Bureau d'études,

Multiplicity,

http://www.constantvzw.com/transmedia_archive/000

055.html

http://www.artnet.com/artwork_images_112558_79836_b

uckminster-fuller.jpg

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