Digital 3D Models of Heritage Artefacts: Towards a digital dream space

Abstract

Museums increasingly employ digital technologies, including digital three-dimensional (3D) imaging technologies, to document their collections and to aid in research, preservation and audience engagement. Digital audience engagement strategies frequently focus on cognitive aspects of museums, including research and learning. This paper explores how an alternative, artistic model of digital engagement can foster intimate emotional experiences and personal connections with museum artefacts.

Museum visitors often read museum objects in subjective ways. This intimate process of museum meaning making takes place in a sub-rational field termed the museum ‘dream space’ (Annis, 1986, Kavanagh, 2000). Creative engagement with 3D technologies in the context of the museum holds the potential to put audiences in touch with the unpredictable realm of museum dream space experience. Through case study research undertaken in collaboration with the National Museum Cardiff, this paper investigates how artistic engagement with museum artefacts using digital 3D technologies can access the experiential realm of the museum dream space and foster emotional connections with museum artefacts.