The Use of Technology in Capturing Various Traditional Motifs and Ornaments in the Digital Era

Abstract

The research discussed the role of the education foundation in the success of Catholic schools in Jakarta. Based on the memories of the school's success and the current facts about school quality degradation as the background, the research asked about the importance of the foundation's role and its performance for school achievement. The research used the qualitative approach and collected data using the deep interview method. Ten respondents were interviewed, including foundation (executive board), school leaders, and other education actors. The researcher used the respondents' answers to analyze the effectiveness of foundation management in running and leading the development of Catholic schools. The research concludes that foundation management is essential in guiding and leading schools to achieve their vision, mission, and objectives. The problem arises when the people in the foundation are chosen not because of their ability and function but because of other not significant reasons. Many education foundation personnel lack the knowledge of education principles and have no time to do their duties. Technological development and digitalization were often identified as the cause of traditional culture elimination. There was an antithesis when it came to technology and digitalization. Therefore, with these two representative cases, this research aimed to show that these developments did not eliminate existing traditions but could instead preserve the almost gone cultures. The material objects in this research were traditional textile motifs, namely Indonesian batik and Turkish Sumerbank, while a descriptive qualitative method was used via a collective case study. First, it involved batik fractal by Piksel Indonesia, where the community used an algorithm, and the Turkish Digital Textile Archive (TUDITA) by Izmir Economic University. These two case studies were selected based on the same material object and traditional motifs but using different technological application processes. The data sources were observation and reviews of literature and audiovisuals. At the same time, the analysis of the two cases was described, analyzed, and performed via Contemporary Cultural theory in the digital age perspective, explicitly using the three indicators for viewing cultural perspectives in the digital era by Piliang. Each indicator was applied to analyze the technology implementation for each case and afterward showed the impact of technology implementation for each indicator. Subsequently, the results show that the traditional Indonesian batik and Turkish Sumerbank motifs are successfully preserved by technology. Batik fractal shows that it has been a great help for the batik artisans to recreate the traditional motifs by using Jbatik software. The traditional batik motifs can be preserved and reproduced into other implementations. While TUDITA also shows how the process of digitalization can restore the lost traditional motifs to build a digital archive of traditional motifs and results in more explorative implementation. Furthermore, although both cases use different technological methods, their implementation produces a new form of traditional textile synthesis without eliminating the essence of the local values contained.