Using Digital Visualisation to Preserve Local Cultural Heritage: A Case Study of Tai Ping Street, Tai O

Description

New technologies, combined with globalisation and rapid urbanisation, are changing the way in which we capture and share our lived experiences and artifacts. Preserving and communicating everyday artifacts and practices is a matter of heritage: it brings the past into the present, providing a legacy, shaping cultural memory and contributing to a sense of identity. Challenges to heritage conservation in Hong Kong include limited developable land, current land policy and a growing population. Chu argues that a lack of long-term design vision and a mismatch of resources and legislation has curtailed heritage conservation in Hong Kong (Chu, 2002). New imaging technologies can be harnessed to preserve cultures, so that future generations can learn about tangible cultural property like buildings and artifacts alongside intangible cultural history and local knowledge, such as people’s customs and their everyday lived experiences (Manen, 1990). The modes of representing and displaying the past are highly contested, however, and bring into play questions of whose cultures are preserved, and how they might be represented to diverse audiences. Scholars of conservation and cultural anthropology have noted the significance of 3D computer visualization in cultural heritage conservation (Gong et. al. 1998). However, traditional (Cassar 2006) and “virtual” (Pavlidis et. al. 2007) cultural heritage projects have focused on famous artifacts and high-status buildings such as world heritage sites (Kenderdine 2010, Levoy 1999).By contrast, little use has been made of 3D computer technology to visualise the residences of poor or average-income, living people. Without an understanding of how lower and middle income villagers live in contemporary Hong Kong, we fail to grasp the importance of their contribution to the cultural diversity of Hong Kong. To begin to remedy this gap, this study will complete a close examination and simulation of one street in Tai O, in order to better understand, and show, how cultural heritage is embedded in places and objects and how viewing and interacting with representations of them can be used to trigger intangible heritage. We are applying for a RGF grant to complete research into the cultural heritage of Tai O Fishing Village and to conduct evaluative research into the effectiveness of virtual representations in cultural heritage conservation. This research will use a methodology that has been termed “scholartistry” (Knowles et. al. 2008), arts-informed hybrid practice which combines methods from contemporary animation and creative media, such as 3D computer modeling, animation and real-time technology, with ethnographic research methods used by social scientists, such as semi-structured interviews and community-based research). This methodology will be used in order to understand, interpret, and represent the lived experience of residents from Tai Ping Street, in Tai O fishing village, Hong Kong.The proposed research is based on a completed prototype and will comprise a series of highly detailed accurate computer models of the interiors of houses on Tai Ping Street. Text data will detail the size and spatial organization of all visible ephemera, measurements of each space and the relationship of placed objects in the homes. These data will be combined with audio narratives in which residents describe the history, meanings and uses of the objects, to reveal a lot about both the people and the place. The interface to the interactive models will make accessing these layers of information and data optional. The outcomes of the research include an interactive exhibit shown locally in Tai O, nationally at a venue such as the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, and internationally at SIGGRAPH and The Inter Society for Electronic Arts. We will write up and contexualise our findings to disseminate them in different disciplines, indicative journals and potential subjects as follows: Curator: The Museum Journal (the importance of creating models of ‘everyday’ places), Leonardo Journal (the nature of digital heritage practices), Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (the aesthetic of digital models). In addition, this exhibit with its embedded associated data will be available for other researchers analysing housing and associated subjects.