Digital Practice as Meaning Making in Archaeology

Beale, Gareth; Reilly, Paul

doi:10.11141/ia.44.13

Cited by 20 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Beyond the archaeological realm range the Open Data sources that provide data relevant to archaeology (for example, LiDAR tiles provided by the Environment Agency in the UK, and satellite imagery provided by Google, NASA and others). And then there are the products of the digital creativity of a plethora of individual user generated content (Beale & Reilly 2017a). For example, in 2010 the Council of British Archaeology identified some 2,030 voluntary groups involving 215,000 individuals involved in British archaeology alone (Thomas 2010).…”

Section: A Meta-scenario Emergesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Whither Digital Archaeological Knowledge? The Challenge of Unstable Futures

Huggett

Reilly

Lock

2018

Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology

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IntroductionThis position paper concerns the direction of computer applications and the digital more generally within the discipline of archaeology, and the manner in which they are adopted and then affect our practices. Digital technologies are integral to many facets of current practice in archaeology. However, there is little evidence of disciplinary-wide coordinated programmes but clear indications of haphazard application adoption, fractures, and silos. The objective here is to develop a framework within which meaningful progress can be made towards a common strategic goal with regards to how we adopt technology and create, develop, manage and share our disciplinary knowledge, competencies and capabilities in the age of the digital.Strategic thinking necessitates negotiation with the future, a task fraught with risk. We can think of probable futures in which we extrapolate some existing trend, such as the adoption rate of a specific technology, or envisage the next generation of technology coming over the horizon (Burton & Barnes 2017). However, there are generally several possible, very plausible, alternative futures, in which case we may think in terms of a collectively preferred future and set a strategy which seeks to favour that outcome. In the real world such predictions can be completely undermined by a wildcard event, something thought so improbable, or even undreamt of, but having a massive positive or negative impact. External factors such as economic instability, political change, and technical disruption can have profound repercussions for the practice of archaeology: our disciplinary structures, principles and norms, and how our collective knowledge, competencies and capabilities are deployed, developed, and maintained or lost. This paper seeks to lay the groundwork for an executable disciplinary knowledge strategy that is both flexible and robust enough to withstand constant disruption as we move forward into an unstable, erratic, and uncertain future. Contextualising the PresentIn seeking to ground any observations about future developments in digital archaeology, it becomes apparent that present perspectives of digital archaeologists fall somewhere between two extremes. At one end, there is a broadly utopian view of digital archaeology as a transformative development, epitomised by Djindjian's "ineluctable success" (2015), whereas on the other there is a more dystopian perspective that recognises the transformative aspect but questions whether archaeologists had much to do with it (e.g. Scollar 1999). Others prefer not to predict whether the impact will be positive or negative, but note they will undoubtedly have profound impact on practice and theory (Ucko 1992). Digital technology increasingly pervades all settings of archaeological practice and virtually every stage of knowledge production. Through the digital we create, develop, manage and share our disciplinary crown jewels. However, technology adoption and digital mediation has not been uniform across all settings or stages. This diver...

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Section: A Meta-scenario Emergesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Whither Digital Archaeological Knowledge? The Challenge of Unstable Futures

Huggett

Reilly

Lock

2018

Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology

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“…In 2017 alone, we saw such discussion in relation to geophysics and imaging (Ferraby 2017), heritage and gaming (Copplestone and Dunne 2017), heritage and auralization (Murphy et al 2017), excavation and drawing (Gant and Reilly 2017), diverse practices of archaeology connected to art (Bailey 2017), and mapping and various forms of painting, installation, and performance (Pálsson and Aldred 2017). Several such pieces are published in a full issue of the journal Internet Archaeology on the topic “Digital Creativity in Archaeology,” wherein the editors plainly aim to spotlight “the creative impulses that permeate, underpin and drive the continued development of even the most empirical digital archaeologies” (Beale and Reilly 2017). In the same year, an issue of the Journal of Contemporary Archaeology was published on the topic “Beyond Art/Archaeology,” exploring “the possibilities for creatively engaged contemporary archaeologies” (Thomas et al 2017:122); and an entire periodical, Epoiesen: A Journal for Creative Engagement in History and Archaeology , was launched, seeking “to document and valorize the scholarly creativity that underpins our representations of the past” ().…”

Section: Interpretative Creativity As Crucial To Understanding the Armentioning

confidence: 99%

Why Are Heritage Interpreters Voiceless at the Trowel's Edge? A Plea for Rewriting the Archaeological Workflow

Perry

2018

Adv. archaeol. pract.

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ABSTRACT“Heritage interpretation” is generally conceived as the development and presentation of knowledge about the past for public audiences. Most obviously evidenced in descriptive signs, guides, and related media installed on archaeological and cultural sites, heritage interpretation has more than a half century of theory and applied practice behind it, yet it continues to sit uncomfortably within the typical archaeological workflow. While the concept can be criticized on many fronts, of concern is the lack of recognition that it is of equal relevance to both nonexpert and expert audiences (as opposed to nonexpert audiences alone). Our profession appears to rest on an assumption that archaeologists do their own kind of interpretation—and, separately, nonexperts require a special approach that heritage interpreters must facilitate but that field specialists have no need for—or from which little obvious expert benefit can be derived. For this reason, it is rare to find heritage interpreters embedded in primary fieldwork teams. Here I call for a rethinking of the traditional workflow, with a view to integrating the heritage interpretation tool kit and heritage interpreters themselves into our basic field methodologies. Their direct involvement in disciplinary process from the outset has the potential to transform archaeological interpretation overall.

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“…Besides practicing traditional field archaeological methods and techniques, Reilly has investigated the potential of alternative, virtual, digitally creative, archaeologies, exploring the craft aspects of digital archaeological practice (e.g. Reilly 1985;1991;2015a;2015b;Beale and Reilly 2017a;2017b). Both archaeological and artistic ways of knowing are largely tacit and unspoken, until we started conversing.…”

Section: Drawing As a Mode Of Enquirymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…RTI was originally developed from the technique of polynomial texture mapping by the archaeological and heritage communities as a vehicle to record, represent and analyse artefacts (see Cultural Heritage Imaging), and it has been applied widely (e.g., Beale and Reilly 2017a;2017b). In essence, RTI captures an object's surface, shape and colour, and enables virtual interactive re-lighting of the captured surfaces from any direction to afford new and extremely intimate engagements with archaeological material.…”

Section: Drawing As a Mode Of Enquirymentioning

confidence: 99%

Different expressions of the same mode: a recent dialogue between archaeological and contemporary drawing practices

Gant

Reilly

2017

Journal of Visual Art Practice

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Stefan Gant's practice and research explores the discourse of contemporary drawing. Through peer selection, Gant was selected as a finalist and exhibitor in 2007, 2010 and 2012 for the Jerwood Drawing Prize, London and UK tour. He was also 'Highly Commended' at the National Eisteddfod of Wales Visual Arts Exhibition in 2007. Through his art practice, Gant challenges the notions of what drawing can be through the temporality of filmic medium and digital technologies. He has exhibited nationally and internationally and has been the recipient of Arts Council of Wales and Wales Arts International funding. Paul Reilly is a both a practicing field archaeologist and a pioneer of virtual and creative digital archaeologies. His current research explores ontological transformations that occur when (im)material archaeology enters the digital. He has published widely (see orcid.org/0000-0002-8067-8991). Reilly is honorary life member and former chairman of the Computer Applications and Archaeology organisation (CAA), and also chairs the CAA International Scientific Committee.

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Digital Practice as Meaning Making in Archaeology

Cited by 20 publications

References 13 publications

Whither Digital Archaeological Knowledge? The Challenge of Unstable Futures

Whither Digital Archaeological Knowledge? The Challenge of Unstable Futures

Why Are Heritage Interpreters Voiceless at the Trowel's Edge? A Plea for Rewriting the Archaeological Workflow

Different expressions of the same mode: a recent dialogue between archaeological and contemporary drawing practices

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