In this first episode of the Recreatus podcast we talk about Digital Heritage as a segue into our future focus on Virtual Heritage.

Episode Transcript:

Recreatus – Episode 00

Jesse Rouse: Okay, so we’re here for the inaugural episode of the Recreatus podcast. I’m Dr. Jesse Rouse.

Saree Porter: Saree Porter.

Caleb Merckle: Hello, my name is Caleb Merkel.

Jesse Rouse: And so, uh, this initial Episode Zero is to, just kind of set up what we’re going to be doing, right, for a few minutes. And, uh, the, the podcast is new. It is supported by the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, which is part of the National Park Service.

Uh, so we like to thank them for, for funding the podcast for this year and it’s about virtual heritage, but we’re going to start with the conversation about digital heritage. And so we’re going to turn it over to Saree to give her definition. of digital heritage. She’s in the digital heritage class right now.

Saree Porter: So, digital heritage is a broad subject. It’s essentially using digital means to better conserve and preserve our history and our culture. This can be done in a variety of ways. You can use virtual reality. You can, digitize, ancient. documents like manuscripts. You can use GIS technologies to find archaeological sites and digs and you can recreate art and artifacts and so on and so forth.

It’s a very broad field.

Jesse Rouse: Very broad. So that’s kind of why we’re focusing more on the virtual for the, for the podcast for the most part. But again, to have the context. We talked about virtual heritage through podcasts. We’ll be talking about generally digital heritage as well which virtual heritage is part of but you also have the fact that all of this is part of cultural heritage And so there we’re talking about this any kind of material culture aspect and kind of cultural knowledge aspect there’s so much from you know, straight Anthropology through to museum studies and physical materials to excavations through to scanning things around the fields.

There’s so much that we can talk about in terms of what cultural heritage is, which is too much to try to do, um, in just a one year podcast. So, uh, that’s why we’re, we’re focusing a lot. So , what is an example that you think of whenever you think of digital heritage? Caleb?

Caleb Merckle: Thank you for asking. I’d like to use a very timely example, which is, , the, Digital Shikoku project, , that, , you and, , and Dr. Bergeron and Dr. Green have been working on. I use this because it’s very Realistic to what we’re doing right now, and I, I like this example because I’m also very connected to the project, , I am just, I love, , Asian culture, especially Japanese culture, and I love, , Japanese history in particular, and seeing the, the digitization and the valuable information that has been , permanently made into a museum of sorts has been really interesting to see.

Jesse Rouse: So to kind of give context, we’re going through, there’s a pilgrimage, , the Henro, , pilgrimage, Buddhist pilgrimage, going around the island of Shikoku in Japan, and, , it’s going through creating digital reconstructions of the temples and then creating a representation of the route between the temples.

Uh, it’s a 1200 kilometer circumnavigation of the island. It’s, something that people have been doing for almost 1,200 years, , or maybe more than 1,200 years. So yeah, it’s this attempt to recreate something that has a very long, but also very modern, perspective on it. So, that’s one example of digital heritage.

What’s another way. You’ve recently been writing blog posts about this, so.

Saree Porter: I have, , one that I really like because I absolutely love historical documents and books and reading and so on is, , the British Library’s Endangered Archives Program, which has many different. Like, all around the world, they’re funding different projects for, , digitizing and conserving documents that have been damaged or ruined in some way.

So they’re recreating and digitizing the manuscripts and documents and so on, and it’s really interesting to me.

Jesse Rouse: Was there any specific document that you were like, wow, that’s awesome. Or is it just so much that it’s overwhelming?

Saree Porter: It’s a lot. There’s, because there’s doing, because right now I believe they have 400 projects last I saw all around the world.

So there’s so many that I wouldn’t even know which one to pick. I did look at one, I believe it’s in India, where they took the kingdom of, hoping I’m gonna say this right, uh, Sikkim, and that recently got combined with India, and so they’re recreating and digitizing their documents that had all kinds of information on them of that kingdom.

Jesse Rouse: Let’s see. What would I choose? There’s so many to choose from. Um, my own projects in things like Digital Shikoku, or sorry, Virtual Shikoku, um, I’ve worked with folks at the Museum of Southeast Indian, I feel like there’s a word missing there, but on basically creating a reconstruction of that museum during one of the exhibits, with the exhibit materials and the physical space.

You know, whenever we’re talking about virtual heritage, you can look at Discovery Channel or you used to be able to at least, uh, or places like that and see how these things are being brought about, whether it’s the using things like, , laser scanning, both in terms of small things and landscapes, , to collect the data or looking at some of the representation styles.

So using virtual reality or, , multi monitor setups to look at some of these things that you can’t get to physically, , that’s kind of the key, right, is that we want to make it so that people can have access to things that are deteriorating, that, you know, as an archaeologist in the past, , we are destroying things as we’re doing archaeology, so it’s not a non destructive way of looking at things, so being able to collect that information, scanning, , information that’s coming out of the site, or even you know, the photogrammetry that’s going on while the site’s being excavated allows us to have a deep record of what was there and sharing that gives other people information.

And of course, as we continue to move forward with technologies, that’s just going to get better and better. So yeah, lots of different ways that we can look at digital. heritage and move that into the virtual space. I don’t know. That kind of, does that kind of summarize a little bit about digital heritage?

I think so. So the one thing that I think we should probably do is go around the table and say, , what our quote unquote background is. So I have a PhD in Geography, , but I’m a person who looks at GIS and landscape archaeology along with other things, but that’s kind of my, my heritage portion of my, my resume.

What is it you hope to do? ,

Saree Porter: What I hope to do, honestly, I’d kill to do something like the British Library’s Endangered Archives Program. That sounds so cool. I’m not usually, I, I’m gonna be honest, I’m pretty, , I’m not great with technology. That’s what it is. I’m technology illiterate. , but I’d kill to do something like that.

Because I’d love to work in the archives, any kind of archives, and help digitize any historical documents. I’d also love to work in provenance research as well. That’d be really cool.

Jesse Rouse: And your degree is going to be in?

Saree Porter: Yeah, so my degree is, , Anthropology with a minor in Art History.

Jesse Rouse: So you’re not doing the Culture Heritage Certificate?

Saree Porter: Oh, I tried, um. Not enough time? By the time I signed up for it, I didn’t have enough time to take all the classes for it. I would love to take it, but unfortunately, I just don’t have the time.

Jesse Rouse: Yeah. It’s kind of new too, isn’t it? Only a couple years old, maybe?

Saree Porter: Yeah, I think so. I didn’t really hear about it until last year, and I graduate this May. So, it’s like, eh, what are you gonna do?

Jesse Rouse: Your experience,

Caleb Merckle: Right now, I am about to get my degree in graphic design, and my minor is, , is in religious studies and Asian studies. , I have a focus on Asian studies because I love learning Asian language, particularly Japanese and Classical Chinese is what I’m focusing on at the moment.

And in terms of what I want to do after, I find digitization important, and I think that’s something that is going to be in my future, particularly, , as I’ve been, as an example, I’ve been slowly translating the Tao, which has been translated before, but, you know, why not another one? And I’m excited to see what that, where that will lead me in terms of, in reading manuscripts and possibly translating those for the first time in English.

And then having that as a permanent record. That’s like a really big goal of mine.

Jesse Rouse: So that just gives you an idea that everybody’s coming from a slightly different perspective. So hopefully that’ll play in. We’ll potentially have others joining us as we go through, and of course as we get to the official episodes, , then we’ll, we’ll be a little more formalized, less sitting around the table type of thing.

But I just wanted to have something out there to get us started because that’s always the hardest part is getting that first episode out. Thanks for joining us for this first episode of Recreatus.