Project Summary
The digital replication of cultural objects is a rapidly developing field all over the world, and Ireland is no exception. Through 3D-visualisation techniques, virtual reality and 3D printing, advanced 3D technologies are increasingly being used in museums and cultural institutions to share collections, educate the public, preserve works of art and inform research agendas. While many cultural institutions in Ireland are engaging with this type of technology, we do not fully understand its implications for research in the long term. This project aims to investigate its benefits and challenges in relation to the Irish replica collections. Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, like the rest of Europe and other parts of the world, Ireland was fascinated by reproductions of cultural objects. A number of Irish institutions formed collections of replicas, particularly for instruction in the history of art. As elsewhere, these replicas fell out of fashion in the twentieth century and the Irish reproductions were substantially reduced in number. There are, however, a number of important collections of historic replicas left in Ireland today. This research will explore the parallels between the historic replication of objects, especially in the period from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, and the current digital replication techniques being applied to the same objects. Although the means of creation of historic replicas and digital ones are different (e.g. plaster casts vs 3D models), many of the reasons for making them are the same. These reasons include their use as educational tools, their commercial possibilities (i.e. as souvenirs for sale) and, in the case of the historic replicas, their status as artefacts in their own right. The now-historic replicas went out of fashion due to changing tastes and trends, and many collections were devalued and destroyed during the twentieth century. Is it possible that the same will happen to today’s digital replicas, or can they be made genuinely sustainable and integrated into modern exhibition spaces? Interestingly, many of the objects that were replicated in the past are the same ones being chosen by Ireland’s cultural institutions today. These are objects that have been deemed ‘culturally significant’, such as the Irish high crosses, medieval metalwork and classical sculpture. This project incorporates training and professional development as well as a theoretical, academic dimension. It has been generously funded by the Irish Research Council’s (IRC) Employment-Based Postgraduate (EBP) Programme, the basic principle of which is to produce graduates with both academic ability and real-world work experience. The emphasis is on future employment and looking farther afield in terms of professional opportunities after the PhD (rather than focusing solely on academic teaching jobs, which are increasingly difficult to obtain). There is a focus on collaboration, especially between disciplines, and the multi-stranded approach of this project reflects that. The research asks a number of key questions, including: Why do we feel the need to replicate objects of cultural significance? With (digital) replicas all around us, do we still value ‘authentic’, ‘real’ objects above copies that can be mass-produced? How can cultural institutions like museums and galleries, and the general public, benefit from the use of new technologies and their collections of replicas? What is the long-term, intrinsic value of digital replicas, and what will happen to this data in the future? Ireland’s historic replicas form one of the best, and yet least understood, collections in Europe. This project aims to reveal these valuable collections in a contemporary manner. It will tie Ireland’s history of re-creating culturally significant objects into modern developments in technology and cultural studies and will investigate the benefits and long-term implications of advanced 3D-replication technologies to cultural institutions in Ireland. It will achieve this through a study of the parallels between historic replicas and the current surge in digital replication. |