The intangibility of tangible objects: re-telling artefact stories through spatial multimedia annotations and 3D objects

An interdisciplinary team at the University of Cologne just released Kompakkt, an open-source online-tool for linking 3D objects to multimedia content and for gathering information through annotations in 3D space more generally. It enables users to share, explore, and collaboratively annotate objects in standard modern web browsers. The 3D representation of an object serves as the hub of an open-ended collection of heterogeneous information established through the use of multimedia annotations. The annotations are flexible (meta)data complementing what one usually finds in collection management systems in the GLAM sector. Through personalised and group level collections of 3D models, images, sounds and videos Kompakkt enables a novel solution for gathering and generating artefact information. The third dimension of objects highlights the perspective of annotations in a new way: annotations are not only linked to a specific location in space, the corresponding point of view chosen by the user is also relevant. Linking and ranking annotations leads to moving from one annotation (and a specific perspective) to another, which implies a movement through space in time. That allows new ways of annotation-based storytelling, where annotations can be used for presentations in which movement in VR- and AR-applications is embedded.