| 1. |
- Eriksson, Thommy, 1967, et al.
(author)
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Imaging the Sanctuary of Hercules Victor : Immaginare il Santuario di Ercole Vincitore
- 2010
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In: Archeomatica. - 2037-2485. ; :2, s. 58-62
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The rapid progress of both information technology and digital media allows for an increasing amount of effective and exciting ways of documenting and communicating our common cultural heritage. Three dimensional scanning through photometry and laser, as well as augmented reality, photorealistic computer graphics and interactive displays; all these are technologies that in days to come will shape the profession of both archaeology and museology. This exploratory article describe the design and production process of a visualization of the Sanctuary of Hercules Victor in Tivoli, part of the interdisciplinary research project Via Tiburtina — Space, Movement and Artefacts in the Urban Landscape at the Swedish Institute in Rome. We address both the philosophical and practical ramifications of communicating the past using technology which allows us to create representations that not only mimic reality but also shape society’s idea about reality through photorealistic visualizations. A pedagogical approach is presented and discussed in a context where the visualization is tested as a communicative device that encourage questions rather than acceptance. Further, we discuss how a communicative exchange through the visual language can be adapted to let the audience de-construct the re-construction and track different layers of certainty in a visualization. In the process we propose and test a set of core guidelines when creating historical representations, with the aim to enhance the pedagogical quality of the scientific visual language.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Eriksson, Thommy, 1967, et al.
(author)
-
Imaging the Sanctuary of Hercules Victor
- 2010
-
In: Archeomatica. - 2037-2485. ; :2, s. 58-62
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The rapid progress of both information technology and digital media allows for an increasing amount of effective and exciting ways of documenting and communicating our common cultural heritage. Three dimensional scanning through photometry and laser, as well as augmented reality, photorealistic computer graphics and interactive displays; all these are technologies that in days to come will shape the profession of both archaeology and museology.This exploratory article describe the design and production process of a visualization of the Sanctuary of Hercules Victor in Tivoli, part of the interdisciplinary research project Via Tiburtina — Space, Movement and Artefacts in the Urban Landscape at the Swedish Institute in Rome. We address both the philosophical and practical ramifications of communicating the past using technology which allows us to create representations that not only mimic reality but also shape society’s idea about reality through photorealistic visualizations. A pedagogical approach is presented and discussed in a context where the visualization is tested as a communicative device that encourage questions rather than acceptance. Further, we discuss how a communicative exchange through the visual language can be adapted to let the audience de-construct the re-construction and track different layers of certainty in a visualization. In the process we propose and test a set of core guidelines when creating historical representations, with the aim to enhance the pedagogical quality of the scientific visual language.
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| 4. |
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Unraveling the logics of landscape
- 2014
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Editorial collection (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Despite conceptual oscillations through times, the concept of landscape remains highly subjective, whereupon unraveling its 'logics' opens up to a plurality of interpretations. Accordingly, by focusing on the interconnections present in the non-haphazard production of landscape, this publication elaborates on how the rural landscape is valued, monitored, changed, harbored, used and misused, be it through actions, representations or metaphors. This book covers a broad range of topics, with contributions from scholars from more than 30 countries.
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| 5. |
- Westin, Jonathan, 1980
(author)
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Inking a Past; Visualization as a Shedding of Uncertainty
- 2014
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In: Visual Anthropology Review. - : Wiley. - 1058-7187 .- 1548-7458. ; 30:2, s. 139-150
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article explores how an idea about the past enters a visualization studio, and the processes by which it is transformed by the techniques of visual representation put in place to make possible the creation of inscriptions and sketches. It focuses on the formation of a fact around a series of inscriptions, as the idea is moved between a number of actants and in the process sheds all traces of uncertainty. The actions of the artists, as they interact with each other, the client and the archaeologists, are at center. As representations create ideas about the past and cement those ideas in society, one cannot separate popular visual representations from the world of science. The processes of their construction hidden from the recipient, they survive the theories that once brought them into being. As a method to describe the making of a visual representation, this article makes use of the actor–network theory concepts of enrollment, inscription, negotiation, and translation to follow an idea into image and make the layers of translation in which image production is wrapped somewhat less opaque.
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| 6. |
- Westin, Jonathan, 1980
(author)
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Loss of culture: New media forms and the translation from analogue to digital books
- 2013
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In: Convergence. The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. - : SAGE Publications. - 1354-8565 .- 1748-7382. ; 19:2, s. 129-140
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- 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. © The Author(s) 2012.
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| 7. |
- Westin, Jonathan, 1980
(author)
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Negotiating 'Culture', Assembling a Past: the Visual, the Non-Visual and the Voice of the Silent Actant
- 2012
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to describe and analyse the processes surrounding the creation of a scientific visual representation, where, both in the practical creation of this visualisation and in the way it is communicated, those actants which amount to what we call ‘culture’ or cultural value, are enrolled or ignored. Trying to answer if a broader set of non-visual cultural properties can be identified and their influence described, and if history can be visualised without displacing our knowledge of the past in favour of a popular representation thereof, I trace the interaction between client, artist, technology and target audience. Although the audience is not permitted to take part in the meetings and walk the floors of the studios, and thus seem to remain silent, I argue nonetheless that their voices are heard during the assembling of a visual representation. Furthermore, offering the audience a tool is not enough to entice them to form their own ideas and exercise influence: although often presented as a visitor-empowering pedagogic technique which invites different interpretations of the material at display, the interactive technology offered by museums and educators is a tool of conformity which disciplines the audience and must therefore be treated as such. An object is not an entity which can be separated into artefact and context, but a hybrid made up of associations spread over both space and time. To describe this, and capture how visual representations can represent ‘culture’, I have developed an analytical vocabulary where the absolute limitations of an artefact or phenomenon is the point of departure. As the vocabulary of limitations demonstrates, limitations constitute the borders of an expression and permit an explanation of how associated actants are shaped by these borders into what we have come to refer to as ‘culture’.
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| 8. |
- Westin, Jonathan, 1980
(author)
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The interactive museum and its non-human actants
- 2011
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In: The Journal Nordic Museology. ; 1/2011, s. 45-59
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This explorative study highlights the different strands of interactive learning technologies available to museums and educational institutions, and analyzes their function as non-human actants from a perspective of power and discipline. Through a generalized symmetry I describe a specific technology — the interactive display — as an actant exercising the same autonomy as the other actants. This raises the non-human actant to the same level as the human actants and emphasizes how it controls an equal part of the communication. In this way I try to map out how an exchange is manifested through a network of actants where the technologies conserve the inquiring actant's knowledge space rather than broaden it. Despite being offered as a technology to make the visitor heard, the result is as curated as the classic exhibition. I conclude that by themselves, interactive displays do not challenge authority at museums but instead reinforce it.
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| 9. |
- Westin, Jonathan, 1980
(author)
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Towards a vocabulary of limitations: the translation of a painted goddess into a symbol of classical education
- 2012
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In: International Journal of Heritage Studies. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1352-7258 .- 1470-3610. ; 18:1, s. 18-32
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- 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.
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