Evaluating Digital Dwelling film - a new way to interpret the past.

[BAJR]

And The Reviews Are In: Evaluating Digital Dwelling...

http://digitaldirtvirtualpasts.wordpress...-dwelling/

As a taster:

Feedback for the film and exhibition overall was hugely positive but of course, this isn’t the Time Out or Rotten Tomatoes film review and though positive feedback is fantastic to see for any project, it all boils down to research in the end. So from a research perspective hearing from people who really didn’t like the film was in most cases tremendously useful, even if they didn’t realise it when they wrote it! Negative feedback ranged anywhere from constructive criticism to being unapologetically mean. And then there were the few that mistook the comments box on the feedback form for some kind of visitor book. Well, at least Denmark liked it.
Some of the most interesting comments furiously insisted that this simply was not what the past was like, that people in the Neolithic were just like us and that the film rather than simply not being to their taste was unquestionably wrong. Collectively, comments indicated that a large proportion of people approach an interpretive visualisation with some level of preconceived expectation over what an archaeological reconstruction or visualisation should do and how it should be represented. In most cases this general public preconception seems to pertain to an archaeological reconstruction representing the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And I can say with all certainty – in no archaeological re-constructive situation is this ever completely possible! The issue with an attitude which expects an explanation as opposed to an interpretation is that it places all interpretive responsibility on the visualisation itself, excusing an audience of any need for critical awareness when consuming these images.

Remember the film? no! For shame. I love it and the way it confronts you and forces a physical engagement with Skara Brae that goes beyond a pretty watercolour of nice neat people in a nice neat house.

So perhaps watch the film first... then read their own review of the review...
A lot to take in and learn from this. !

[video=vimeo;66396373]http://vimeo.com/66396373[/video]

[P Prentice]

i love it. a perfectly valid and evoative interpretation. people in the past were not like us. they may not have been like that either but so what.

[Tool]

I think anything like this is good, because it makes you think, gives you a yardstick against which to measure your own views. And if it make you question and reason, then it's done a great service.

As a kind of aside, but related, if you're unsure about something, sometimes it's helpful to put an extreme view 'out there' and listen to the reaction. Having to argue against something (or even for something) forces you or the respondent to clarify their own thoughts. Its a good way to learn.

[Wax]

loved it, often wondered what it might feel like to move through the spaces people constructed in the past. And what's wrong with mixing art and archaeology? Our ancestors certainly mixed art with a lot of things. Particulary liked the painted hands and ritual object handling. I know it may not have been like that but as long as the authors don't claim that their interpretation is the truth then it's as valid as any other interpretation and certainly far more engaging. Surprisied reading the reviews that in this day and age when we are bombarded by "un real" images of all kinds that people were complaining that it was "not real"

[Jack]

i love it. a perfectly valid and evoative interpretation. people in the past were not like us. they may not have been like that either but so what.

How do you know that?? Do you have a time machine?

Though I agree with your first comment. I did like the film, but loathed it too. So well done to the team who made it.

Job done. :face-approve:

[P Prentice]

people in the past were de facto not like us because, in this case, we have suffered from 4000 years of social evolution and our minds have to deal with hundreds of years of scientific study - though i cant explain why some minds still require religeon.

[BAJR]

Wot P Prentice said

How could they be "like" us. no more than you are like a Peruvian Maize Farmer.

[Tool]

But... (just to play Devil's advocate?) in many ways they were, most probably, just like us. The need to feed, and thus developing mechanisms to do so, the desire to procreate, to have shelter etc. etc. There are some aspects of the past where I feel it is perfectly legitimate to look at an issue or a problem that may have been faced through our modern eyes, because I don't believe the basic mental and emotional processing has changed that dramatically since humans became, well, human. Of course though we have to be aware that there would have been a whole host of other factors and influences acting on those in the past of which we could have no understanding.

[Jack]

Wot P Prentice said

How could they be "like" us. no more than you are like a Peruvian Maize Farmer.

How about convergent evolution being applied to 'us'......

Definition
noun
Evolution wherein organisms evolve structures that are similar structures or functions in spite of their evolutionary ancestors being very dissimilar or unrelated.

.........and that evolutionary changes are dictated by the particular pressures..if the pressures change back to similar to a former state then shouldn't the resultant forms be similar to the previous ones?

And, I think you'll find I am very like a Peruvian farmer. As Tool pointed out: I have to breath, eat and drink, I want to procreate and I use the internet.

However, I would concede that my lungs and blood aren't adapted for living at high altitudes and I don't believe in a jaguar god/spirits - but do all Peruvian farmers?

I have, and always will have a problem with archaeologists filling in the gaps in current knowledge by making up what could have been - you may as well have them talking to alien visitors from mars. If we don't know we don't know. The act of making it up is just as biased by modern thinking as the 'new archaeology' claimed procedural archaeologists were. It's not any more valid than because its constructed free of scientific evidence, it is less so.......

Though now that rant is free from my turmoiled brain, I have to say I liked the video. It is important to challenge current preconceptions, and even more important to engage with our ultimate clients - the public.

[P Prentice]

There are some aspects of the past where I feel it is perfectly legitimate to look at an issue or a problem that may have been faced through our modern eyes,

what do you see when you watch a catholic mass? what does it mean to you when a catholic crosses themselves before a fight? why do budhists ring bells? why do some cultures venerate animals and why do others have taboos against eating some animals? what has a ring got to do with marriage? why are some animals lucky/unlucky? the list is endless and we can answer most of them to some degree but would someone from our Neolithic if transported in jacks time machine (when he fixes it)? and would someone from one of the last uncontacted rainforest tribes?