The Real, the Virtually Real, and the Hyperreal: The Role of VR in Archaeology

Gillings, Mark

doi:10.1002/9780470774830.ch12

Cited by 29 publications

(42 citation statements)

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“…Likewise in debates surrounding digital media, the idea that virtual representations signal the end of authenticity has been challenged (e.g. Cameron 2007;Gillings 2005;Jeffrey 2015), or at least reconfigured as 'the experience of aura is alternately called into question and reaffirmed' (Bolter et al 2006: 22).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

3D heritage visualisation and the negotiation of authenticity: the ACCORD project

Jones

Jeffrey

Maxwell

et al. 2017

International Journal of Heritage Studies

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Abstract:This article examines the question of authenticity in relation to 3D visualisation of historic objects and monuments. Much of the literature locates their authenticity in the accuracy of the data and/or the realism of the resulting models. Yet critics argue that 3D visualisations undermine the experience of authenticity, disrupting people's access to the materiality, biography and aura of their historic counterparts. The ACCORD project takes questions of authenticity and 3D visualisation into a new arena -that of community heritage practice -and uses rapid ethnographic methods to examine whether and how such visualisations acquire authenticity. The results demonstrate that subtle forms of migration and borrowing occur between the original and the digital, creating new forms of authenticity associated with the digital object. Likewise, the creation of digital models mediates the authenticity and status of their original counterparts through the networks of relations in which they are embedded. The current pre-occupation with the binary question of whether 3D digital models are authentic or not obscures the wider work that such objects do in respect to the cultural politics of ownership, attachment, place-making and regeneration. The article both advances theoretical debates and has important implications for heritage visualisation practice.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

3D heritage visualisation and the negotiation of authenticity: the ACCORD project

Jones

Jeffrey

Maxwell

et al. 2017

International Journal of Heritage Studies

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“…Gillings [23] speculates that the lack of theoretical discussion and absence of any sustained body of critical theory in this area may be attributed to the specialist knowledge required to produce visualisations, especially in a digital medium where a certain level of technical ability is required. What is more, he observes that where critical discussion has taken place it has tended to occur after these images have been produced, resulting in a system of post-hoc justification rather than the development of a sustained guiding methodology.…”

Section: Visualisation In Archaeological Research Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Digital Dwelling: Re-thinking Interpretive Visualisation in Archaeology

Watterson¹

2015

Open Archaeology

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Archaeology is a visually rich discipline with a long history of utilising images across a variety of contexts within its practice. However, due to the often unavoidably subjective nature of visual interpretation, fundamental issues with its application remain problematic and largely unresolved. Furthermore, in recent years the rising dominance of digital techniques for archaeological threedimensional surveys and interpretive visualisation has resulted in a rapid uptake of emerging technologies without adequate assessment of their impact on the interpretive process and practitioner engagement. Using an example from experimental work in Orkney as a springboard for discussion this paper outlines the need for the field to develop a more practical approach to addressing some of these recurring issues by developing methodologies which more accurately reflect the multi-layered, interpretive and ambiguous processes involved in archaeological interpretation.

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“…For Latour and Lowe the complex digital techniques required to create a physical facsimile are an intermediate phase of the replication process and the aura migrates to the final replica. While the concept of aura in the digital realm has been previously recognised, the focus has been on a general crisis of the aura or the accrual over time of a new form of aura [12,13]. I would contend that Latour and Lowe's argument regarding physical replicas or reproductions can also be applied to digital replicas and reproductions i.e.…”

Section: "The Authenticity Of a Thing Is The Essence Of All That Is Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenging Heritage Visualisation: Beauty, Aura and Democratisation

Jeffrey

2015

Open Archaeology

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Abstract:In this paper I will pose a challenge to digital heritage visualisation that takes as its starting point the weirdness of the digital world in comparison to everyday experience. Related to this is the apparent inability for digital objects to benefit from or acquire aura from their originals. I contend that, unless mitigated, these properties will cause a continuing lack of engagement with digital heritage visualisation beyond the professional and academic circles in which they are created. Contrary to expectations, I will argue digital objects can indeed manifest an auratic quality and that this is in fact fundamental to how they are received by various audiences. I contend that both aura and the intimate relationship between digital representation, aesthetics and the creative imagination need to be understood and embraced in practice. Finally, I will suggest some ways of addressing the challenge by looking at modes of co-production, physical replication and aesthetic quality. The ChallengeOver the last two decades, digital visualisation methodologies have become firmly embedded in the canon of archaeological practice. Archaeologists and heritage managers have drawn on a range of recording technologies to generate highly accurate datasets of historic objects, monuments and landscapes. They have also increasingly drawn on the rich functionality of 3D modelling packages to create visualisations and reconstructions of the past. 3D datasets, and the visualisations generated from them, are used in site recording, site management, structural analysis, archaeological interpretation and hypothesis testing, and increasingly, as a dissemination mode for broader audiences. In this paper I will focus on the challenge we face in using heritage visualisation to help us think anew about the past itself, rather than strictly in relation to their function as digital documents of real world heritage objects, structures and landscapes.In the digital domain long-standing issues of data integration, discovery and long-term preservation have now begun to be tackled in a meaningful way. Engagement with multiple audiences through digital visualisation is possible and, if good practice is followed, the visualisations are discoverable, referenceable (e.g. via DOI), contextualised and permanently available. This should herald a Golden Age in heritage visualisations. However, there is a danger that the quest for new technological approaches, precision, accuracy and apparent realism becomes an end in itself, following a path that Huggett has referred to as technological fetishism [1]. In this paper, I will argue that there remain significant challenges that need to be addressed if we are to capitalise on this potential Golden Age.

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The Real, the Virtually Real, and the Hyperreal: The Role of VR in Archaeology

Cited by 29 publications

References 0 publications

3D heritage visualisation and the negotiation of authenticity: the ACCORD project

3D heritage visualisation and the negotiation of authenticity: the ACCORD project

Beyond Digital Dwelling: Re-thinking Interpretive Visualisation in Archaeology

Challenging Heritage Visualisation: Beauty, Aura and Democratisation

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