Exhibitium generates awareness about temporary art exhibitions for their multi-faceted use and reuse.  This was the slogan of the proposal presented in the 2014 seminar held by the BBVA foundation for projects in the field of Digital Humanities, resulting in the project being chosen from among more than 250 applicants.

The evaluation committee particularly took into account its potential as a ‘project of important social impact to promote knowledge in the field of art history in circuits less accessible by conventional methods. Exhibitium is very innovative, with great technological competence dedicated to the art world and the impact that it has on society”.

Exhibitium focuses attention on the phenomenon of art exhibitions that are regularly held by galleries, museums and art centers, foreseeing them in their status as complex cultural phenomena resulting in the establishment of a series of relationships between certain actors, but also in strategic factors in the promotion of social dynamics and economic movements.

For this, Exhibitium proposes the development of a technological tool that serves as a base to produce a platform destined for the development and analysis of data available with regards to these exhibitions. Our proposal is based on the conjugation of a series of computer technologies and analysis methodologies derived from technological surveillance, network analysis, and the KDD strategy (Knowledge Discovery in Databases), which allow us to capture, register, structure and process this data in a meaningful way; as well as extract unpublished knowledge based on quantitative and qualitative parameters (networks, clusters, and patterns) to make them useful and reusable, by means of open and interoperable data systems.

We consider that the results of the Exhibitium project will be interesting for a wide range of sectors:

Scientific-academic (preparation of theories and critical interpretations);

Cultural institutions (strategic decisions on the design of exhibition programs);

Tourist and leisure industries (preparation of itineraries and pleasure-cultural activities based on this data);

The public and citizens themselves (socialisation from generated information and appropriation by the public and citizens in order to generate new cultural itineraries or new social dynamics surrounding temporary exhibitions).

The project forms part of the lines of work undertaken by iArtHis_Lab, whose specific aim is the promotion, development and consolidation of the Digital Art History studies in Spain, which fall as a specific and differentiated aspect, within the wide field that Digital Humanities currently covers. This project also forms part of the initiatives promoted by the International Network of Digital Studies on the Artistic Culture, ReArte.Dix, the first international organisation dedicated to this purpose in the Spanish speaking context. It is funded by the University of Malaga as part of their own research plan and as part of the projects associated with the Campus of International Excellence Andalusia Tech.

In addition to the iArtHis_Lab research group, the project includes researchers who lead research groups specialising in the analysis of large data sets, such as Khaos, the research group from the University of Malaga, headed by Professor of Computer Science, Jose F. Aldana Montes, and the CulturePlex laboratory at the University of Western Ontario (Canada), directed by Juan Luis Suarez.