Getting Hold of the Urban Chameleon

Jona Schlegel; Martin Wieser; Geert J. Verhoeven

doi:10.48619/indigo.v0i0.975

Jona Schlegel Independent researcher, Vienna, Austria
Martin Wieser Independent researcher, Vienna, Austria
Geert J. Verhoeven University of Vienna - Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology

DOI: https://doi.org/10.48619/indigo.v0i0.975

Keywords: Cesium, Contemporary graffiti, Cultural heritage, JavaScript, Wireframe

Abstract

This paper presents Urban Chameleon, an online platform currently developed within INDIGO, an academic project that aims to inventory, disseminate, and analyse contemporary graffiti along the Donaukanal (Eng. Danube Canal) in Vienna, Austria. Urban Chameleon serves as a digital space to visually and analytically explore these graffiti. The paper provides an in-depth overview of the platform’s development process, including data modelling underpinnings and Web development technologies. The text further discusses the platform’s potential applications for researchers, heritage professionals, graffitists and the wider public interested in engaging with the vibrant and dynamic graffiti-scape along the Danube Canal. In that way, the article contributes to the ongoing discourse on graffiti as a multi-faceted, modern cultural practice with heritage value.

Author Biographies

Jona Schlegel, Independent researcher, Vienna, Austria

Jona Schlegel (°1988) is a PhD student at the University of Vienna, focusing on archaeological stratigraphy and spatio-temporal reasoning in the context of graffiti. She completed her MSc in Landscape Archaeology in 2018 at the University of Applied Science and the Free University, Berlin. At the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology (2018–2023) Jona worked on geophysical prospection and 3D documentation. During project INDIGO, Jona has contributed to developing the INDIGO graffiti thesaurus, organised symposia, and played a pivotal role in web development and spatio-temporal data structuring. Her work and research can be explored at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jona-Schlegel.

Martin Wieser, Independent researcher, Vienna, Austria

Martin Wieser (°1986) is an independent researcher in photogrammetry and remote sensing. He received his Master’s degree from the Technical University of Vienna (TU Wien, Austria) in 2012. From 2010–2019, Martin worked on many photogrammetry, 3D modelling, remote sensing and data visualisation topics at the TU Wien as a project and university assistant. Since 2016, Martin has also been developing geospatial soft and hardware prototypes for researchers worldwide (Historic England, University of Vienna, Murdoch University Perth).

Geert J. Verhoeven, University of Vienna - Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology

Geert J. Verhoeven (°1978) is a senior scientist in archaeology at the University of Vienna (Austria). He received his Master’s and PhD degrees from Ghent University (Belgium) in 2002 and 2009, respectively. Geert is passionately curious about photography, image-based 3D surface modelling, metadata and semantic technologies, spatio-temporal reasoning, colour science, image processing, data visualisation and statistics. His endeavours in these fields aim to improve and standardise data acquisition, data management and information extraction procedures to benefit archaeology and the broader cultural heritage field. From September 2021 to August 2023, Geert took a deep dive into the colourful graffiti world by coordinating project INDIGO. His research output can be found at https://beyondconventionalboundaries.com.

Getting Hold of the Urban Chameleon

Towards a Platform for Graffiti Visualisation and Analysis

Abstract

Author Biographies