Haptic insights: model making as historical methodology

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article explores the value of digital reconstruction practice to the theatre historian in general, but in particular to the historian concerned with exploring visual histories offered by the areas of theatre design and architecture. It will articulate differences between the expectations and reality of digital reconstruction as illustration (both fixed and interactive) and suggest caveats and opportunities offered by digital (and virtual) outputs as a mode of communication. While the article will explore practice and critical commentary related to reconstruction as illustration, it will focus in more detail on the model as practice as research. The intention is to explore the methodological value of reconstructive practice in the process of the historian and identify possibilities for communicating the tacit knowledge generated by these approaches in ways that move beyond the simple presentation of visualised outputs as illustration.