Digital 3D models of heritage artefacts: Towards a digital dream space

This paper explores the use of digital 3D models of museum artefacts in a creative context. It investigates how creative engagement with digital 3D models of heritage artefacts can stimulate learning and foster new forms of engagement with digital heritage artefacts. This paper is illustrated with examples of creative works from a case study undertaken in collaboration with the National Museum Cardiff. & 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd. 1. Institutional practice Digital media are increasingly incorporated in museum exhibitions (Lovejoy, 2004) and an increasing number of museums and other heritage institutions are now undertaking 3D digitisation of their collections. Digitisation is used to support museums' core duties of collection, preservation and display; ‘the collection and creation of digital objects is seldom a goal in its own right, but rather a consequence of other institutional activity’ (Newell et al., 2012: 291). Digital 3D models of heritage artefacts are used in a continuation of the traditional activities, which scholars and professionals in cultural heritage institutions have been pursuing for centuries; to document museum artefacts, heritage sites and archaeological finds, to study heritage materials without the need for physical access, to simulate real-world scenarios and to test restoration and hypothetical reconstructions. Furthermore, digital reconstruction from photographic data can ‘restore’ lost heritage; the Buddhas of Bamiyan, for example, were digitally reconstructed from photographic images by a team of researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, following their destruction in 2009 (Gruen et al., 2004). Whereas museum artefacts are perceived as a part of the past, ‘digital historical objects are usually conceived as tools for understanding the past’ (Newell et al., 2012: 291). Within the context of documentation and restoration, it is of key importance that digital 3D models are as historically accurate as possible. At the same time, a certain amount of objectivity is unavoidable in the preparation of digital 3D models. There are ongoing debates concerning the accuracy of digital heritage materials. Many researchers and practitioners in the field of museums, heritage and archaeology see the creative use of digital 3D models of heritage materials as anathema to the established uses of digital heritage materials to assist in research and education. The open and creative use of digital copies continues to be seen as a threat to museum culture and practise, based on the long-held fear that simulations could render physical collections of authentic artefacts obsolete. Another common fear in the heritage sector is that open engagement with digital heritage materials will distort the context and meaning of the original artefacts. These fears are heavily debated, with some arguing that multiplication of an object can increase its fame and lead to increased awareness and interest in the original item itself; ‘the intensity of the search for the original depends on the amount of passion and the number of interests triggered by its copies’ (Latour and Lowe, 2010: 4); ‘Benjamin has the aura of art exactly the wrong way around. It is the (...) reproduction that created the aura of the original’ (Walsh, 2007: 29). 2. Liminal 3D models The digitisation of heritage artefacts is not as objective as the use of hands-free technologies might suggest. Digital 3D models have to be edited in many small and often imperceptible ways. There is no fixed point at which a digital model of a heritage