Margot BERNSTEIN
(Columbia University, New York, USA)

Keywords: Session: The State of 3D Modeling of Cultural Heritage in the Age of Augmented Reality, Xbox Kinect, UAVs, and the Oculus Rift

Abstract:
My paper emphasizes the manner and extent to which twenty-first-century technologies can help us to understand the mobility and meaning of eighteenth-century furniture. It argues not only for a rethinking of decorative arts objects, but also for a rethinking of (indeed, a revolution in) scholarly approaches to these objects—approaches that move beyond the written word and photographic image and embrace the video and digital technologies about which eighteenth-century society could not have dreamed, and of which twenty-first-century art historians have yet to take full advantage.
The paper centers on a folding card table of c.1755-65 attributed to Bernard II van Risenburgh in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in its capacity to function not only as a window into eighteenth-century French cultural practice, but also as an active participant within that practice. This table embodies secrecy, chance, and constant flux, each of which was germane to the card games that were played on its surface; it expresses some of the most subtle and characteristic aspects of eighteenth-century culture.
Yet, access to and insight into the van Risenburgh table’s appearance, functionality, and broader socio-cultural significance are limited for visitors in the Metropolitan’s gallery, where this piece of furniture remains both out of reach and stationary. Because the table has only been captured in still photographs, audiences viewing this object on the museum’s website are similarly deprived of a comprehensive understanding of its dynamic, kinetic existence. In the absence of a digital model of the card table, I rely upon a digitized recreation of an eighteenth-century game table by David Roentgen that was created and made publicly available by the Metropolitan Museum on the occasion of a recent exhibition in my efforts to illustrate digital technology’s crucial role in illuminating eighteenth-century furniture’s capacities to direct, reflect, and manifest sociability.