VIDEOS

Factum Foundation’s recreation of the lost silver map of al-Idrisi was included in the display at the Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah (25th January – 25th May 2025), as part of the Al Madar section curated by Abdul Rahman Azzam, Heather Ecker, Marika Sardar, and Masa Al-Kutoubi.

Al-Idrisi’s groundbreaking contribution to cartography is also highlighted in a short film accompanying the exhibition, written by Factum Foundation and edited by POCKO.

Factum Foundation is in discussion with the artist and curator Richard Demarco about the future of the Demarco Archive, a remarkable collection of post-war avant-garde and performance art with strong links to the Edinburgh Festival. Without significant funding, it is at risk of becoming homeless at the end of 2024 and Factum Foundation is seeking ways to secure the archive’s future – one option is to locate it at the Cylinders Estate, the site of Kurt Schwitters’ Merz Barn.  Factum Foundation’s Ferdinand Saumarez Smith sat down with Richard Demarco to discuss the synergy between the two organisations and Schwitters as a godfather figure of the avant-garde.

(English) On a night of full Harvest Moon between September 29th and 30th 2023, the Arabic kiln in Úbeda was brought back to life for the first time since 2007, and more than 500 objects were fired over the course of 35 hours. Hundreds of objects, from jugs, pots and oil containers to jars and plates emerged from the kiln; all unique in their materiality and subtle imperfections, produced by the poetic transformation of fire and earth. The entire process was meticulously documented.

© Oscar Parasiego | Henry Boston-Crayfourd | Factum Foundation

(Español) En una noche de luna llena, entre el 29 y el 30 de septiembre de 2023, el horno árabe de Úbeda volvió a la vida por primera vez desde 2007, y se cocieron más de 2000 objetos en un lapso de algo más de 35 horas. Cientos de objetos, desde jarras, ollas y alcuzas hasta jarrones, platos, lebrillos… emergieron del horno; todos únicos en su materialidad por sus genuinas, pero bellas imperfecciones. Esas piezas fueron producidas por la transformación poética del fuego y la tierra. Todo el proceso se documentó meticulosamente.

© Oscar Parasiego | Henry Boston-Crayfourd | Factum Foundation

Factum Foundation has been working with the Musei Capitolini and Fondazione Prada on the ambitious recreation of the 13m-tall Colossus of Constantine for the exhibition ‘Recycling Beauty’ (until February 27, 2023). The scale of the project involved almost all of Factum’s various areas of expertise over the course of nearly ten months.

For over a year, Factum Foundation worked with Melchor Tito Sr. and Melchor Tito Jr., a family of potters, on a project to revive a traditional ceramic Arabic kiln in the city of Úbeda, Spain. On a night of full Harvest Moon between September 29th and 30th, the kiln was brought back to life for the first time since 2007, and more than 500 objects were fired over the course of 35 hours. The slow, complex process resulted in hundreds of objects, all unique in their materiality and small imperfections. The entire process, including the modelling, carving, glazing, and bathing of the pieces, was meticulously documented by two cameramen from the Factum Foundation and will soon become a short film capturing and immortalising months of dedication.

Following a radio programme on the ARCHiVe project (The World, September 2020), Factum Foundation was contacted by Divirod, a start-up from Boulder, Colorado. Divirod uses harmonic recordings to create dynamic representations of tide, wave activity and wind speed to predict erosion and flooding and provided a number of advanced sensors to monitor the relationship between land and water on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. The installation of the first sensor on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore in late August 2021 is part of ARCHiVe’s work to document and study both cultural heritage and natural changes on and around the island. A second sensor was installed in 2022.

Factum Foundation’s team have been finding ways to bring all the evidence from different recording systems together in a way that makes it easy to analyse. The work started some years ago when we scanned a small panel believed by Bastiaan Blok, its owner, to be by Van Gogh. New recordings of the panel suggest there are genuine reasons for experts to investigate the claim. Although Factum Foundation is not involved in making attributions, we do provide the data to help others make informed decisions.

Factum Foundation and Factum Arte worked with Fondazione Palazzo Te on recreating five designs by Giulio Romano as physical objects for the exhibition ‘Giulio Romano. La forza delle cose’. Curated by Barbara Furlotti and Guido Rebecchini, the show focuses on the artist’s talent and ingenuity in object design at the Gonzaga court. The intricate designs were rematerialised as elaborate 3D models by Irene Gaumé, Jordi Garcia and Manuel Franquelo at Factum Arte, before being 3D printed in sections and cast in a variety of materials depending on the size and complexity of the details.

In the spring of 2022 Factum Foundation began filming a documentary video about ARCHiVe to help define, clarify, and communicate what is happening inside the center: ongoing projects, experimental work, collaborations, spaces, methods, and key players. ARCHiVe, in partnership with the Cini Research Institutes and partners, is working to enhance and convert into digital form the rich documentary heritage of the Fondazione Cini itself and beyond, to study-involving other institutions and scholars-new methods for preserving and transmitting it thanks to digital technologies, and, finally, to propose training activities with professionalising value in the field of Digital Humanities.

The Gough Map, thought to be Britain’s oldest, has been revealed in unprecedented detail thanks to cutting-edge 3D technology more commonly used in computer games and CGI. The ARCHiOx Project in partnership with the Factum Foundation uses a prototype photographic system to examine some of Britain’s oldest artefacts held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, UK. The new scanning techniques not only give researchers new ways to study rare objects like the Gough Map, but new preservation tools for archivists to keep priceless artefacts safe for future generations.

From January 17 until February 7, a team of digitisation specialists from Factum Foundation recorded in high resolution the Chamber of the Giants, the Chamber of Cupid and Psyche and the Hall of the Horses inside Palazzo Te. The project was part of a partnership with Palazzo Te for the 2022 event season ‘Mantova: L’arte di vivere’. The palace, built as a place of leisure for the Gonzaga family in the mid 16th century, was designed and frescoed by Giulio Romano. The data, acquired using LiDAR, photogrammetry and composite photography, is currently being processed and will belong to Fondazione Palazzo Te and help with the documentation, preservation, study and dissemination of the rooms, also enabling future diverse and innovative exhibition projects.

As part of the seminar series jointly organised by the Zurbarán Centre of Durham University and the ARTES Iberian and Latin American Visual Culture Group in association with the Embassy of Spain and the Instituto Cervantes, Adam Lowe and Charlotte Skene Catling offered a tour of ‘In the Blink of an Eye, Transience and Eternity in the Spanish Golden Age’. As part of the Auckland Project, Jonathan Ruffer commissioned Factum Foundation and Skene Catling de la Peña to rethink the concept and role of a museum for the top floor of the Spanish Gallery, in Bishop Auckland.

Adam Lowe, founder of Factum Foundation was responsible for the closing session of an international symposium on the role of Machine Learning and AI in the recording and analysis of cultural heritage. This was intended as an introduction to the September conference on Cultural Heritage and conflict resolution. The conference was held at the University of Castilla La Mancha in Toledo on 18th and 19th June 2021. His panel consisted of both online and offline participants: Adrian Cussins, Brian Cantwell Smith and Ken Singer.

On 19th November 2020, Michelle O’Malley from the Warburg Institute talked with Ana Debenedetti and Adam Lowe about the recording of Raphael’s Cartoons at the V&A in August 2019. While the discussion focused on Raphael, it also looked more generally at the role of digital recording in light of the museum closures and the restrictions caused by COVID-19. High-resolution recording, display and rematerialisation technologies have serious implications for the study, display and dissemination of works of art – both online and offline access will be increasingly important in providing access to culture.