Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere

The broadly-defined field of “digital cultural heritage” has utilized emerging technologies such as virtual reality and 3D printing to increase access to aspects of our shared human past. Pedagogically, these technologies are often used to present virtual “tourism” where participants can “visit” reconstructed spaces or interact with 3D printed replicas of otherwise inaccessible artifacts. However, these experiences sometimes concede veracity for the sake of usability, and users are often not equipped to critically engage with the choices developers made in creating these experiences. As with many digital projects, the creation of these virtual experiences are exercises in curatorial decision, and the 3D rendering of these spaces often introduces at least some error from either automated computer generation or human artistic choice in hand-correcting of models.

Digital Humanities’ pedagogical efforts in the realm of data literacy, information literacy, and visual literacy represent one approach to attempting to correct the uncritical reception of these materials. To that end, Mathhew Hunter has begun to focus on developing methods for engaging students in the critical examination of immersive and 3D-generated cultural heritage materials.

In this session he will outline his experiences teaching student interns of vastly different levels of technological and humanities experience to engage with cultural heritage objects in digitally-constructed formats through creation and critique in three particular areas: virtual reality, 3D printing, and virtual soundscapes.

Matthew Hunter, Digital Scholarship Librarian, Florida State University

Zoom registration