Jonathan Westin

Loss of Culture: New media forms and the translation from analogue to digital books

From a perspective of critical heritage studies and conservation, this article exemplifies how the vocabulary of limitations (Westin, 2012) can be put to work on a translation-in-process; the shift from analogue to digital books. This vocabulary is a continuation of the sociology of translation (Callon, 1986), where limitations of a given format are identified as actants enrolled by stakeholders in the translation process, and, as such, anchor the format to society. Approaching the format as an actant which disciplines socio-cultural expressions through its limitations, this study tries to shed light on how cultural values are either acquired, reinforced or negotiated away in the translation process, when content is brought from one format into another.

Introduction: what is historical game studies?

In 2005, William Uricchio published ‘Simulation, History and Computer Games’, a chapter in the Handbook of Computer Game Studies (Raessens and Goldstein 2005). A few other articles on the topic of ...

Towards a vocabulary of limitations: the translation of a painted goddess into a symbol of classical education

This paper discusses how ties with society are accumulated and interpreted as the ‘culture’ of an artefact. Following the reinterpretation of a painted statue into a white museum artefact, I argue that the rules we have to follow in approaching an artefact create a series of unrelated socio-cultural connotations which shape our perception of the object. The culture of the artefact is therefore largely the culture of the context through which it is presented. Hence, by distancing an artefact from an established context you also distance it from the networks that make up a large part of its cultural value. To discuss this process I draw on the works of Michael Callon and Bruno Latour, describing the presentation as a ‘translation’ – a process where the artefact is reinterpreted from one state into another. As a method to describe values sprung from the presentation of the artefact, I propose, and exemplify, a vocabulary of limitations for mapping the ties between society and artefact in different contexts. This vocabulary – developed for this article – helps us identify deeper connections between artefact, context and society by focusing on how interaction has been shaped around the artefact.

New Philadelphia: using augmented reality to interpret slavery and reconstruction era historical sites

Abstract Does a historical site lose its significance or become less worthy of interpretation if there are no surviving buildings? Can technology help present the stories of disadvantaged and disenfranchised groups whose heritage lacks well-preserved architecture or material culture? The emerging technology of augmented reality (AR) offers new ways of designing and shaping the public’s experience when visiting landmarks by enabling an unprecedented means to combine 3D historical visualization with historical landmarks. This especially applies to underrepresented groups whose heritages have not been well served by traditional modes of preservation and interpretation due to a variety of factors. These range from disadvantages relating to material culture to a greater emphasis on intangible heritage which have placed them outside the bounds of what archaeologist Laurajane Smith calls authorised heritage discourse. A project at the New Philadelphia National Historic Landmark, located in Pike County Illinois, seeks to address these issues through AR. The technology, while offering opportunities for historical interpretation, poses challenges in terms of designing AR systems that coordinate content presentation with specific locations as well as developing virtual historical content with varying levels of source materials.

Assembling Arosenius – staging a digital archive

ABSTRACT Starting from the theoretical literature on narratives in archives and exhibitions this article investigates pedagogical approaches to letting museum visitors establish meaningful narratives through digitised archive material. The aspect of activating the audience in a museum exhibition is tightly linked to the curatorial approach and aims with an exhibition, but also to the possibilities that arise from the archival material and its digital form. As a case study, the project has focused on a painting by the Swedish artist Ivar Arosenius (1878–1909), exhibited in the Gothenburg Museum of Art. It has been associated with four different sets of digitised material from the Arosenius Archive, each made available through a distinct Augmented Reality interface. The different types of archival items contribute in different ways to the purposes of contextualisation and activation and have various affect values. An employment of archival material may contribute to creating affect by taking away the intermediary. The audience can naturally connect with the archive, thus providing it with a perceived direct contact to the artist. As the archival material, that is the original voices, is left uncommented, the audience can form its own conceptions of the treated aspect.

Humanising places: exposing histories of the disenfranchised through augmented reality

The conference Challenge the Past/Diversify the Future, hosted by the Centre for Critical Heritage Studies at the University of Gothenburg in March 2015, addressed the importance of thinking critically when documenting or expressing the past using digital technologies.1 This themed section’s aim is to grant a selection of papers from the conference a deservingly wider readership, focusing specifically on Augmented Reality as a means through which to both diversify established ideas about space and its people, and challenge perceptions of the past. The ultimate purpose is to stress the importance of devising an ontology to document the process of enhancing reality on site in a transparent and inclusive manner so as to account for diversity (see Vitale 2016). As demonstrated by the many insightful studies on the effect of representational practices on historical and cultural studies (see Smiles and Moser 2005; Russel 2006; Waterton and Watson 2010; Bonde and Houston 2013), when cultures, history, peoples and their performative practices and lifestyles are solidified through elaborate acts of representation, reconstruction or description, there is often little initiative to diversify and question. Through the representation thereof, the past is being globalised as an assemblage of agreed upon symbols that becomes our heritage rather than reflecting it. An understanding of the processes that make up these modes of documentation through which we communicate those places, events and performative practices that are part of our cultural heritage is crucial, since the communicative traditions these make use of constitute a large part of the public’s apprehension of past cultures and people. As have been shown on numerous occasions (see James 1997; Moser 2001; Westin 2014), the representations we are creating of the past often follows well established conventions that are outdated, homogenous, and highly problematic, and may feed into contemporary political conflict. It takes great effort to break free from these conventions, to diversify and tell new stories.