Designing Digital Engagements: Approaches to creative practice and adaptable programming for archaeological visualisation

The processes of archaeological visualisation exist at the intersection of art practice and archaeological interpretation, often involving complex negotiations between stakeholders and practitioners. This paper reflects upon the authors’ experiences developing interactive mixed media content for public outreach from two case study archaeological excavations: the SERF Hillforts Project in Strathearn, Scotland and the Nunalleq Archaeology Project in southwest Alaska. Each presented unique challenges in the integration of layered multivocal narratives in the context of ongoing archaeological excavations. This included evolving scientific interpretations, co-design with stakeholders and a cycle of feedback. Creative design and software development were a core part of the collaborative process that resulted in these interactive digital interfaces. Here we explore how collaborative creative practice influenced the design choices that were made and the programming paradigms that were used.

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

Alice Watterson

John Anderson

Kieran Baxter

Conference

Publication date: July 2020

Publication date (Print): July 2020

Pages: 66-72

Affiliations

[0001]3DVisLab, University of Dundee

13 Perth Rd, Dundee DD1 4HT, UK

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/EVA2020.10

SO-VID: 08b9db70-978f-417c-8efa-751ab7bec106

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Proceedings of EVA London 2020

Conference acronym: EVA 2020

Conference number: 30

Conference location: London

Conference date: 6th July – 9th July 2020

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: AI and the Arts: Artificial Imagination

Product

1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/EVA2020.10

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

K Baxter 2014 Grounding the Aerial: The Observer’s View in Digital Visualisation for Built Heritage Electronic Visualisation and the Arts: proceedings of the EVA 2014 conference London, UK 8–10 July 2014 163 170 BCS London
K BeckM BeedleA van BennekumCockburnW., A CunninghamM FowlerJ GrenningJ HighsmithA HuntR JeffriesJ KernB MarickR MartinS MellorK SchwaberJ SutherlandD Thomas 2001 Manifesto for Agile Software Development http://agilemanifesto.org/ 10 Mar 2020
J Clifford 2013 Returns: Becoming Indigenous in the Twenty-First Century Harvard University Press Cambridge, MA
N Collins 2011 Live Coding of Consequence Leonardo 44 3 207 211
R, A, O Dawson 2001 Bridging Traditions and Science A CrowellA SteffianG Pullar Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People University of Alaska Press Fairbanks
H Denard 2012 A New introduction to the London Charter A Bentkowska-KafelH DenardD Baker Paradata and Transparency in Virtual Heritage Ashgate Farnham
G. P Earl 2004 Video Killed Engaging VR? Computer Visualisations on the TV Screen S SmilesS Moser Envisioning the Past: Archaeology and the Image Blackwell Publishing Oxford
M Elsom-Cook 2001 Principles of interactive multimedia McGraw-Hill London
A Fienup-RiordanA ReardenM Knecht 2015 Irr’inarqellriit/Amazing Things: Quinhagak Elders Reflect on Their Past Alaska Journal of Anthropology 13 2 37 70
L HardmanG Van RossumD.C Bulterman 1993 Structured multimedia authoring Proceedings of the first ACM international conference on Multimedia Anaheim, US August 1993 283 289 Association for Computing Machinery New York
C Hillerdal 2017 Integrating the Past in the Present: Archaeology as Part of Living Yup’ik Heritage C HillerdalA KarlströmC-G Ojala Archaeologies of “Us” and “Them”: Debating History, Heritage and Indigeneity Routledge London and New York
C Hillerdal 2018 Words Apart: Archaeology, indigenous communities and the power of definition A EkblomC IsendahlK-J Lindholm The Resilience of heritage. Cultivating a future of the past. Essays in honour of Professor Paul J.J. Sinclair Uppsala University Uppsala
C HillerdalR KnechtW Jones 2019 Nunalleq: Archaeology, climate change and community engagement in a Yup’ik village Arctic Anthropology, 56 1 4 17
J Huggett 2004 Archaeology and the New Technological Fetishism Archeologia e Calcolatori 15 81 92
S Jeffrey 2015 Challenging Heritage Visualisation: Beauty, Aura and Democratisation Challenging Digital Archaeology, Open Archaeology 1 144 152
O Kawagley 1990 Yup’ik Ways of Knowing Canadian Journal of Native Education 17 2 5 17
J Law 2004 After Method: Mess in Social Science Research Routledge Oxon
R LevyP Dawson 2014 Interactive Worlds as Educational Tools for Understanding Arctic Life K Kee Pastplay: Teaching and Learning History with Technology University of Michigan Press Chicago
J Schlag 2018 Surviving the colonial blizzard: The Alaskan Native game Never Alone as a walkthrough in cultural resistance K. N McDaniel Virtual Dark Tourism. Ghost Roads Cham, Palgrave Macmillan Switzerland
Serious Animation 2017 SERF Digital Hillforts www.seriousanimation.com/hillforts 7 March 2020
Serious Animation 2019 Nunalleq: Stories from the Village of Our Ancestors www.seriousanimation.com/nunalleq 7 March 2020
C Richards 2005 Dwelling Among the Monuments McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research Cambridge
W.W Royce 1970 Managing the development of large software systems Proceedings of IEEE WESCON, Los Angeles, US 4–6 August 1970 328 388 IEEE New York
L SmithG Campbell 2016 The Elephant in the Room: heritage, affect and emotion W LoganM. N CraithU Kockel A Companion to Heritage Studies John Wiley & Sons Hoboken, NJ
L. T Smith 2012 Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples Zed Books London
S Turkle 2009 Simulation and its Discontents MIT Press Cambridge, MA
A Watterson 2015 Beyond Digital Dwelling: Re-Thinking Interpretive Visualisation in Archaeology Challenging Digital Archaeology, Open Archaeology, 1 119 130
A WattersonC Hillerdal (In review) Nunalleq, Stories from the Village of Our Ancestors: Co-designing a multi-vocal educational resource based on an archaeological excavation Archaeologies Journal
E. B. W Zubrow 2006 Digital Archaeology: A Historical Context T. L EvansP Daly Digital Archaeology: Bridging Method and Theory Routledge New York

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] K Baxter 2014 Grounding the Aerial: The Observer’s View in Digital Visualisation for Built Heritage Electronic Visualisation and the Arts: proceedings of the EVA 2014 conference London, UK 8–10 July 2014 163 170 BCS London

[2] K BeckM BeedleA van BennekumCockburnW., A CunninghamM FowlerJ GrenningJ HighsmithA HuntR JeffriesJ KernB MarickR MartinS MellorK SchwaberJ SutherlandD Thomas 2001 Manifesto for Agile Software Development http://agilemanifesto.org/ 10 Mar 2020

[3] J Clifford 2013 Returns: Becoming Indigenous in the Twenty-First Century Harvard University Press Cambridge, MA

[4] N Collins 2011 Live Coding of Consequence Leonardo 44 3 207 211

[5] R, A, O Dawson 2001 Bridging Traditions and Science A CrowellA SteffianG Pullar Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People University of Alaska Press Fairbanks

[6] H Denard 2012 A New introduction to the London Charter A Bentkowska-KafelH DenardD Baker Paradata and Transparency in Virtual Heritage Ashgate Farnham

[7] G. P Earl 2004 Video Killed Engaging VR? Computer Visualisations on the TV Screen S SmilesS Moser Envisioning the Past: Archaeology and the Image Blackwell Publishing Oxford

[8] M Elsom-Cook 2001 Principles of interactive multimedia McGraw-Hill London

[9] A Fienup-RiordanA ReardenM Knecht 2015 Irr’inarqellriit/Amazing Things: Quinhagak Elders Reflect on Their Past Alaska Journal of Anthropology 13 2 37 70

[10] L HardmanG Van RossumD.C Bulterman 1993 Structured multimedia authoring Proceedings of the first ACM international conference on Multimedia Anaheim, US August 1993 283 289 Association for Computing Machinery New York

[11] C Hillerdal 2017 Integrating the Past in the Present: Archaeology as Part of Living Yup’ik Heritage C HillerdalA KarlströmC-G Ojala Archaeologies of “Us” and “Them”: Debating History, Heritage and Indigeneity Routledge London and New York

[12] C Hillerdal 2018 Words Apart: Archaeology, indigenous communities and the power of definition A EkblomC IsendahlK-J Lindholm The Resilience of heritage. Cultivating a future of the past. Essays in honour of Professor Paul J.J. Sinclair Uppsala University Uppsala

[13] C HillerdalR KnechtW Jones 2019 Nunalleq: Archaeology, climate change and community engagement in a Yup’ik village Arctic Anthropology, 56 1 4 17

[14] J Huggett 2004 Archaeology and the New Technological Fetishism Archeologia e Calcolatori 15 81 92

[15] S Jeffrey 2015 Challenging Heritage Visualisation: Beauty, Aura and Democratisation Challenging Digital Archaeology, Open Archaeology 1 144 152

[16] O Kawagley 1990 Yup’ik Ways of Knowing Canadian Journal of Native Education 17 2 5 17

[17] J Law 2004 After Method: Mess in Social Science Research Routledge Oxon

[18] R LevyP Dawson 2014 Interactive Worlds as Educational Tools for Understanding Arctic Life K Kee Pastplay: Teaching and Learning History with Technology University of Michigan Press Chicago

[19] J Schlag 2018 Surviving the colonial blizzard: The Alaskan Native game Never Alone as a walkthrough in cultural resistance K. N McDaniel Virtual Dark Tourism. Ghost Roads Cham, Palgrave Macmillan Switzerland

[20] Serious Animation 2017 SERF Digital Hillforts www.seriousanimation.com/hillforts 7 March 2020

[21] Serious Animation 2019 Nunalleq: Stories from the Village of Our Ancestors www.seriousanimation.com/nunalleq 7 March 2020

[22] C Richards 2005 Dwelling Among the Monuments McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research Cambridge

[23] W.W Royce 1970 Managing the development of large software systems Proceedings of IEEE WESCON, Los Angeles, US 4–6 August 1970 328 388 IEEE New York

[24] L SmithG Campbell 2016 The Elephant in the Room: heritage, affect and emotion W LoganM. N CraithU Kockel A Companion to Heritage Studies John Wiley & Sons Hoboken, NJ

[25] L. T Smith 2012 Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples Zed Books London

[26] S Turkle 2009 Simulation and its Discontents MIT Press Cambridge, MA

[27] A Watterson 2015 Beyond Digital Dwelling: Re-Thinking Interpretive Visualisation in Archaeology Challenging Digital Archaeology, Open Archaeology, 1 119 130

[28] A WattersonC Hillerdal (In review) Nunalleq, Stories from the Village of Our Ancestors: Co-designing a multi-vocal educational resource based on an archaeological excavation Archaeologies Journal

[29] E. B. W Zubrow 2006 Digital Archaeology: A Historical Context T. L EvansP Daly Digital Archaeology: Bridging Method and Theory Routledge New York