Beyond Remediation: The Role of Textual Studies in Implementing New Knowledge Environments (original) (raw)
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2010
The title of this paper is an adaptation of Ian Hodder’s notion that interpretation starts ‘at the trowel’s edge’ (1997), as excavations should be active, reflexive and multivocal practices, during which interpretation takes place as an inextricable part of our research. The process of interpretation is a complicated issue. It has engrossed most practitioners, and is closely related to the conceptualisation of the past as reflecting contemporary social and cultural experiences through the scrutiny of cultural heritage remains. Archaeological remains are under appreciated, as they can be accessed only by specialised audiences, and any finds are presented by means of conventional illustrations and comprehensive list of artefacts. Even the most common recording method in archaeology, i.e. fieldnotes, and the subsequent site reports, have been criticised (Hodder 1989) for their distance and impersonality, as well as their attempt to demonstrate objectivity by establishing rigorous classifications and complex terminologies. For that reason, different forms of media have been used in the interpretive processes, not only in scientific research, but also for providing varied levels of engagement with the archaeological datasets by the public. The advent of computer applications in archaeology and cultural heritage over the last twenty years has transformed both the way we do archaeology and our understanding of fundamental words, such as artefact, heritage and interpretation (Cameron & Kenderdine 2007: 1-3). Although these technologies tried to overcome the issues discussed above, as they were rapidly evolving they created a trend, usually leading to the application of these tools for the sake of it, in order to demonstrate their powerful capabilities, and were not being driven by any scientific considerations (Gillings 2005, Goodrick & Earl 2004, Richards 1998: 341). Virtual constructions have been constantly used in various forms, such as virtual and augmented reality, for the interpretation of cultural heritage in museums and institutions, but they have also been employed to illustrate journals, and even externalise our reasoning in academic books. The high visual stimulus that virtual constructions usually provide is a useful way to attract visitors to museums, archaeological sites or other heritage institutions. They also allow archaeological knowledge to be communicated and interpreted more effectively. In addition, online platforms have been used to make archaeological knowledge approachable to the public, by incorporating multimedia, simplified versions of field notes and self-explanatory images. On the other hand, novices in the field of digital methodologies are not aware of the potential of virtual constructions in investigating and interpreting archaeological data. This means that digitally constructed versions of the past can be effectively employed as a means of formal spatial analysis in the reasoning process of archaeological scientific research. It can be used to investigate multifaceted issues, which cannot be approached by any conventional means used in archaeology, such as architectural drawings and photography. This paper examines how the interpretation of archaeological remains, and consequently cultural heritage, can be facilitated by the use of computer methodologies, and argues that these applications should be considered one of the most promising ways to approach incomplete, abstract and ambiguous archaeological evidence. They create unique perspectives and new theoretical visions, advancing the construction of disciplinary knowledge, while making the audience extract meaning from the information being visualised, and making difficult-to-understand or abstract concepts more comprehensible. In order to examine this potential we use as a case study a Minoan site in Greece.
Introduction: a critique of digital practices and research infrastructures 1
Cultural Heritage Infrastructures in Digital Humanities, 2017
Digital Humanities might appear a recent phenomenon. Yet almost seventy years have gone by since Father Roberto Busa initiated his Digital Humanities project: the computer-assisted lemmatization of the complete Thomistic corpus (http://www.corpusthomisti-cum.org/). Although Busa first conceived of this project in 1946, it took him nearly four decades to realize it; leveraging the power of the digital computer as an ordering machine capable of processing and listing potentially infinite amounts of textual data. The development of the first computational analysis of archaeological materials, a numerical classification of Eurasian Bronze axes conducted by Jean-Claude Gardin and Peter Ihm in the late 1950s (Cowgill 1967; Huggett 2013) introduced a different aspect of computer-based research: one that brought to the fore the possibilities afforded by digital methods for dimension reduction, discovery and visualization of latent structures of complex data. Fast-forwarding to the present day, two surprisingly distinct communities have already emerged in digital arts and humanities research. On the one hand, Digital Humanities, at least until very recently, appeared preoccupied with transforming the traditions of text-based humanities computing, drawn directly from library collections and scholarly practice. Digital Heritage, on the other hand, has drawn more from theories and practices in digital archaeology and the digital representation of material culture but has often gained attention for its adoption of cutting-edge visualization and virtual reality technology. While driven by the traditions of custodian institutions such as museums, galleries, libraries, and archives and special collections, Digital Heritage leverages the capabilities of contemporary technologies in visualizing and representing cultural objects beyond text, and occasionally borrows ideas from the entertainment industry. Digital Heritage might influence Digital Humanities in terms of lessons learnt from visu-alization, scanning / recording, 3D photorealistic modelling, GPS and mapping technologies , and possibly even instructional design and serious game development. But Digital 1