Experiencing the Digital World: the Cultural Value of Digital Engagement with Heritage

该项目的目的是对数字参与和访问在塑造博物馆、画廊和遗产背景下的文化体验方面的作用进行批判性审查。自20世纪90年代末以来，数字世界产生与遗产部门广泛接触的新方式的潜力一直是学术工作和文化实践的重点。学者和实践者都探索了数字技术的潜力，为我们对过去的理解提供了新的见解，为社会的更广泛部分。这有多种形式，从考古遗址的3D建模到长期保护和管理物质遗产的大型数字化项目。与此同时，同事们探讨了如何利用数字世界作为一种工具，增加和扩大公众对遗产文化的参与。一方面，这集中在互联网如何帮助为博物馆，画廊和遗产提供“商店窗口”，并将其转化为对网站的实际访问。另一方面，该部门越来越多地寻求利用数字领域为更有活力的双向参与遗产文化提供空间，旨在提供对实际参观的补充体验，从而通过一系列现象（例如用户生成的内容，在线社区，众包项目）提高遗产的文化价值。在过去的十年里，世界各地的许多遗产文化中发生了大量规模不等的数字项目。这些为数字化的潜力提供了大量的案例研究，既可以扩大对世界遗产的访问，也可以为个人和社区提供体验和消费遗产的新方式，来自Europeana基金会-一个互动论坛，提供来自欧洲各地的数百万件文物-小规模的项目，如“Ostalgie Kabinett”，帮助支持社区参与前东德国家的历史记忆。同时，无论是在学术界还是在灰色文献中，人们越来越强调我们如何衡量这一活动的价值，以及在这种情况下我们所说的价值是什么。正如Parry（2010）所强调的，这是一个很容易“迷恋未来，忽视过去”的活动领域。或者，它有可能（也许有点违反直觉）帮助限制对物质文化的访问，将其锁定在“保护性”数字墙之后（卡梅隆和肯德丁2010）。我们的评论将通过“文化价值”的关键透镜来审视这种紧张关系，将数字参与的讨论置于更广泛的文献中，涉及与遗产本身的互动和参与，研究中共同生产的潜力以及这对遗产“所有权”问题可能产生的影响，所有的问题，塑造当前的概念化之间的关系，物理和数字领域。本CR的目的是三重。1)它将概述遗产部门目前参与数字世界的方式，提供一系列国际案例研究，以突出全球领先的实践。2)这些案例研究将嵌入学术和灰色文献的批判性分析，特别是文献如何试图理解在这种情况下的“价值”问题的调查。3)将在利兹举行一次研讨会，由一个国际遗产专业人员小组对批判性审查的结果进行评估，以探讨他们认为文献中仍然存在的差距以及博物馆学和遗产实践的潜在新方向。反过来，这也将导致为希望加强与受众的数字互动的遗产专业人员制作简报文件。

The aim of this project is to provide a critical review of the role of digital engagement and access in shaping cultural experiences in the context of museums, galleries and heritage. Since the late 1990s the potential of the digital world for generating new ways of engaging with the heritage sector, widely defined, has been a key focus of both academic work and cultural practice. Academics and practitioners alike have explored the potential of digital technology for offering new insights into our understanding of the past for an ever wider section of society. This has taken a number of forms, from 3D modelling of archaeological sites to large-scale digitisation projects for the long-term preservation and curation of material heritage. At the same time, colleagues have explored the ways in which the digital world can be used as a tool for increasing and broadening public participation in heritage culture. On the one hand, this has focussed on how the internet can help provide a 'shop window' for museums, galleries and heritage, and translate this into physical visits to sites. On the other, the sector increasingly seeks to use the digital sphere to provide a space for more dynamic, two-way engagement with heritage culture, aimed at providing a complementary experience to the physical visit that can, in turn, enhance the cultural value of heritage through a range of phenomena (e.g. user-generated content, online communities, crowdsourcing projects). The last decade has seen a huge number of digital projects take place on a variety of scales operating in a whole host of heritage cultures around the world. These provide a plethora of case studies for the potential of the digital both to widen access to the world's heritage and provide new ways for individuals and communities to experience and consume heritage, from the Europeana Foundation - an interactive forum which provides access to millions of artefacts from across Europe - to small scale projects such as the 'Ostalgie Kabinett' which helps support community engagement with the historical memory of the former East German State.At the same time, there has been a growing emphasis, both amongst scholarly and grey literature, on how we measure the value of this activity and what we mean by value in this context. As Parry (2010) highlights, this is an area of activity which can easily 'fetishise the future, and neglect the past'. Or it has potential, somewhat counter intuitively perhaps, to help limit access to material culture, locking it away behind a 'protective' digital wall (Cameron and Kenderdine 2010). Our review will examine this tension through the critical lens of 'cultural value', placing discussion of digital engagement within the broader literature on interactivity and participation with heritage per se, the potential for co-production in research and the ramifications this can have on the question of the 'ownership' of heritage, all issues that shape current conceptualisations of the relationship between the physical and the digital sphere.The aim of this CR is threefold. 1) It will give an overview of the ways in which the heritage sector currently engages with the digital world, providing a range of international case studies in order to highlight leading-edge practice globally. 2) These case studies will be embedded within a critical analysis of the scholarly and grey literature, and in particular an investigation of how the literature has sought to understand the issue of 'value' in this context. 3) The findings of the critical review will be evaluated, via a workshop to be held at Leeds, by an international group of heritage professionals in order to explore what they perceive to be the continuing gaps in the literature and potential new directions for museological and heritage practice. This will, in turn, also lead to the production of briefing document for heritage professionals looking to enhance their digital engagement with audiences.