On the 14th December, Grant Cox, of ArtasMedia will be presenting at the ‘Behind the Pixel’ conference at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. You can find his extract below.
The Reflected Past: Exploring the processes behind digital reconstruction
For years the integration of digital technologies within heritage has been frequently viewed as an intensive application of algorithms, ‘one click’ solutions and computational objective processes. Due to this ideology, arguments regarding realism, misrepresentation and responsibility have not only masked inadequacies in practitioner application, but also exposed underlying inconsistencies and insecurities in the wider archaeological community. Misrepresented and often masked behind jargon and naivety, discussions relating to what these technologies can offer and how valuable they can become as interpretative and expressive tools at creating reconstructions and visually appealing imagery are highly underdeveloped in comparison to evocative visions of an artificially driven discipline, with very little human involvement. Yet, as heritage professionals begin to master these adopted skills, assimilating them into a multidisciplinary proficiency, discussions regarding how and why they are initially adopted are beginning to arise and crucially, impact upon archaeological discourse. This is creating a renewed sense of responsibility from the creators of reconstructions and providing an increasingly open approach to the visualisation process. Using several personal case studies (Such as Çatalhöyük and The Portus Project) and commercially driven experience, this talk will explore the popular processes often used to create high quality 3D still imagery/animation, the fashions behind them and my personal psychological evolution from initial exploration into these technologies as an archaeologist, to contemporary reflections as a practicing 3D artist.
If you are in Barcelona during the day, please think about checking out the conference, it should be a great day with many presentations covering everything from augmented reality & CGI, to virtual reality. Grant’s talk will show some recent bits of work that we have not been made public, as well as a lot of behind the scenes ideas and discussions that will be part of upcoming projects.
