TY - JOUR
T1 - Colliding epistemologies, productive tensions and usable pasts in the generation of heritage-led immersive experiences
AU - Swords, Jon
AU - Nally, Claire
AU - Rogage, Kay
AU - Watson, Richard
AU - Charlton, James
AU - Kirk, David
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to acknowledge the support of our funders the AHRC and EPSRC (project number AH/R010137/1). Our partners Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums and FaulknerBrowns Architects provided incredible insight and support from the inception of the project, through to its development and execution. Thanks to Paul Griffin for literature suggestions. Finally, we’d like to thank the participants who gave up their time to take part in interviews and workshops. Without their innovative and enthusiastic engagement the research would not have been possible.
PY - 2021/2/1
Y1 - 2021/2/1
N2 - The growth of immersive technologies offers new ways in which heritage can be made usable. Virtual, augmented and mixed reality experiences are the latest media forms through which historical narratives can be told and heritage experienced. There are many challenges to create experiences which engage users in a meaningful way from the origination stage, through design and content creation to delivery, all of which bring together practitioners from disparate fields. Drawing on the concept of usable pasts, this article examines how disciplinary differences create tensions, challenges and productive outcomes in the generation and design of immersive experiences intending to take heritages out of museums to allow publics to experience them within the built environment. We draw on Brown and Knopp’s approach of productive tensions and colliding epistemologies which helps highlight and understand the constraints and opportunities of cross-disciplinary work in the creation of usable pasts. Through our exploration of how to develop a design methodology for producing heritage-led immersive experiences we argue for the importance of understanding the philosophical approaches used by different stakeholders in the design process, highlight the importance of non-digital technologies and discuss how practical issues can produce ontological clashes.
AB - The growth of immersive technologies offers new ways in which heritage can be made usable. Virtual, augmented and mixed reality experiences are the latest media forms through which historical narratives can be told and heritage experienced. There are many challenges to create experiences which engage users in a meaningful way from the origination stage, through design and content creation to delivery, all of which bring together practitioners from disparate fields. Drawing on the concept of usable pasts, this article examines how disciplinary differences create tensions, challenges and productive outcomes in the generation and design of immersive experiences intending to take heritages out of museums to allow publics to experience them within the built environment. We draw on Brown and Knopp’s approach of productive tensions and colliding epistemologies which helps highlight and understand the constraints and opportunities of cross-disciplinary work in the creation of usable pasts. Through our exploration of how to develop a design methodology for producing heritage-led immersive experiences we argue for the importance of understanding the philosophical approaches used by different stakeholders in the design process, highlight the importance of non-digital technologies and discuss how practical issues can produce ontological clashes.
KW - Usable pasts–immersive technology–heritage–built environment–epistemologies
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85087359036&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/13527258.2020.1780462
DO - 10.1080/13527258.2020.1780462
M3 - Article
SN - 1352-7258
VL - 27
SP - 186
EP - 199
JO - International Journal of Heritage Studies
JF - International Journal of Heritage Studies
IS - 2
ER -