eM+ Laboratory for Experimental Museology, EPFL

The Laboratory for Experimental Museology (eM+) at EPFL is a transdisciplinary initiative at the intersection of immersive visualization technologies, visual analytics, aesthetics and cultural and scientific (big) data. eM+ engages in research from scientific, artistic and humanistic perspectives and promotes post-cinematic multisensory engagement using experimental platforms. eM+ has developed a range of unique visualisation systems combined with powerful sonic architectures that are benchmarks in the realms of virtual, augmented, mixed realities. These cluster-based 3D systems have been deployed in major exhibitions and installations throughout the world. At the heart of the research framework conceived at eM+ is ‘computational museology’. Computational museology provides a scaffold to unite machine intelligence with data curation, ontology with visualization, and communities of publics and practitioners with embodied interaction through immersive interfaces. It empowers cultural organizations to link all forms of culture and materiality: objects, knowledge systems, representation and participation. eM+ works on tangible and intangible heritage and archival materials from many countries including Asia, Australasia and Europe. The Lab creates high-fidelity data in-the-field through a range of state-of-the-art techniques (motion capture, ambisonics, photogrammetry, linear and laser scanning, panoramic video, stereographic panoramas etc). eM+ transforms this burgeoning world of cultural data into advanced ultra-high resolution visualization through advanced computer science (interactive graphics, computer vision, deep learning, etc) and HCI. In addition, the Lab works in unison with developments in computation and computer vision (e.g. large language models and large image models) to define access to large cultural datasets