Practice-Based Research in Digital Arts: A Case Study of Wat Phumin, Nan Province, Thailand

Thai mural paintings have played a significant role in Thai society since The Sukhothai Kingdom period (1238-1438 AD) until the present. Wattana Boonjub (2009) points out that Mural painting was used for teaching the Thai people in the past. Throughout history, temples have become a crucial part of Thai' lives; for example, Wat Phumin in Nan Province. Wat Phumin has exceptional architecture, beautiful visual presentations of Buddhist storytelling on the walls which depict scenes from the Buddhist Jataka tales, and scenes of everyday life in Nan. These unique characteristics have attracted many visitors to this temple over the years. Also, when those interested visit Wat Phumin, they experience this temple as a Museum. Loïc Tallon et al. (2008) suggests that the museum experience provides an appropriate situation for learning history in an unconventional setting. As a result, previous research titled “Visual Research Practices on Thai Lanna Mural Painting: A Case Study of Wat Phumin, Nan Province” was presented at The 4th International Conference for Asia Pacific Arts Studies (ICAPAS 2016). The results indicated that the information concerning the Lanna mural paintings inside the temples was overwhelming. However, no directions are facilitating Thai and foreign visitors in viewing and understanding at the first episode of storytelling on Lanna mural paintings inside Wat Phumin. Therefore, this research is the result of finding a solution to facilitating visitors in viewing Buddhist Jataka tales through digital arts and digital technology (such as responsive web design, QR codes, etc.) with practice-based design research.


Literature Review
Identifying a solution to facilitate the comprehension Thai and foreign visitors of Thai Lanna mural paintings is not an easy task. This research has adopted practice-based research methodology through practice in its attempt to do so.

Practice-Based Research
Practice-based research is an authentic investigation to garner new insights from a variety of practices and the outcomes of those practices. According to Laurene Vaughan (2017), the author describes practice-based research as the collection of knowledge through creativity resultings in the scheme of designs, music, digital media, performances and exhibitions (p.56). This research was designed to explore an example solution to facilitate the visitors' viewing experience of Lanna mural paintings at Wat Phumin, Nan province using different approaches. Wat Phumin in Nan province as figure 1, presents a dazzling visual presentation of Buddhist storytelling on the walls (T. Pichaichanarong, 2016). In this research, the setting at Wat Phumin has been treated as a museum. Ana Maria Theresa Labradorpp (2018) points out that museums can be sites for investigation (p.78).

Wat Phumin as A Museum
Therefore, treating Lanna mural paintings as museums would suffice as mentioned.

Definition of Terms Responsive Web Design
This research chose a website to act as the channel to facilitate Thai and foreign visitors' experience of Thai Lanna mural paintings at Wat Phumin, Nan province because since the invention of the internet by Tim Berners-Lee 1989,it has become a widely used means of communication. According to Jason A. Clarke, (2015) there was a change in web development from 2010 to present. Web development has expanded to mobile platforms with mobile computing which includes browsing the web, watching movies, typing on word processors, etc.
Responsive web design is a set of know-how tools for creating web sites that work on various devices and screens (p.2).

QR Code
QR code is a readable code comprising a batch of black and white strips, used for linking URLS reading by a camera on a smartphone, as derived from the Japanese industry in 1994 (Retrieved from the internet on February 27 th ,2016). The QR code was introduced to this research with responsive web design for connecting to videos on the YouTube channel. Indeed, video is itself another means of facilitating visitors.

Practice-Based Research Design
The first step in practice-based practice in this research starts with the inspiration from Assistant Professor Fua Haripitak (1910Haripitak ( -1993    As a result, this research adopted the copy drawing sample technique for the Thai Lanna mural paintings at Wat Phumin, Nan province. In order to copy the entire drawing sample technique, this project required the entire photograph of Thai Lanna mural painting at the temple. Also, those photographs are in digital files, and they can refer as "digital arts" in this research.    Stories of the Buddha' to be in the correct order, the direction of the storytelling starts with the north, followed by east, south, and west at Wat Phumin, as shown in figure 11.  All of the QR codes on the images of Thai Lanna mural paintings linked to 2D moving images for the storytelling of Panya-Jataka at Wat Phumin uploaded to

YouTube.
In fact, the video contents on YouTube comprises 2D moving images for the storytelling of Panya-Jataka for Wat Phumin, which the researcher received funds from the Office of Contemporary Art and Culture (OCAC) Ministry of Culture, Thailand in 2017. The 2D moving images for storytelling of Panya-Jataka at Wat Phumin, Nan province totaled amounts of thirteen videos.
After that, the researcher has completed the placement 13 QR codes into 13 positions in the images of Thai Lanna mural paintings at Wat Phumin, as shown in figure 13.

Responsive Web Design
What is RWD? According to Jason A. Clarke (2015), the author of the book "Responsive Web Design in Practice", the idea of building web sites that work on multiple devices and screens in order to serve the new era of digital technology with limitless power.
The responsive web design was used in this research because of its ability to work on multiple devices and screens. The researcher suggests RWD can facilitate Thai and foreign visitors to Wat Phumin, in their experience of Thai Lanna mural paintings at Wat Phumin in Nan Province.

Google Sites
For the first version of RWD, the researcher used Google Sites as a tool.
Google Sites is one of the products from Google first released in 2008. Google Sites was created for anyone who wants to create a personal website. The new version of Google sites has the responsive web ability to open its website on various platforms.
In addition, Tatpuje and Ganbote (2015) point out Google platform contains with number of tools and apps, use of videos, online tools, interaction through Google community.
In Thailand, there is the collaboration between Google and Thai Universities called "Google for Education" in order to help the students improve their learning and innovation (retrieved from https://edu.google.com on Feburary 28 th , 2019).
The researcher used Google Site from Silpakorn University, Thailand for the first version of RWD as shown in figure 15.

RWD Frameworks
For the second version of RWD, the researcher used the RWD frameworks to create a responsive web as a tool. A framework is a collection of files-scripts, HTML, CSS, and so forth. In addition, Priyanka Panchal (2017) explains that the quality of this web properties will calibrate from mobile screen to full desktop resolution continuously.This research selected the "Bootstrap" framework (http://getbootstrap.com/). Bootstrap is the most popular of the three frameworks widely used globally presented in figure 16.

Data Analysis
This research used a practice-based research design in every steps of producing the final outcome to answer the objectives of this research. Indeed, the researcher followed all the practice-based approaches in the framework as given in figure 18.

CONCLUSIONS
In conclusion, this study has achieved all the objectives as set. However, the idea of this study derived from the creativity related to the literature review and in-depth interviews from field trips. In addition, the researcher added digital technologies in this study as well, and expects new knowledge to be derived from this experiment.
From the results from my research, I can conclude that new digital technologies can influence the ways in which individuals and institutes act as a