Placing Virtual Heritage: Reconciling virtual and cultural heritage with the Spatial Turn

Abstract

Common landscapes, ethnicity, and intangible cultural heritage are increasingly valued by historic preservationists yet are poorly reflected in the Virtual Heritage corpus. Furthermore, meeting the standards of heritage recording concerning accessibility, sustainability, accuracy, and the disclosure of data limitations within Virtual Heritage, creates tensions yet to be reconciled. The Spatial Turn encourages a reassertion of space and place into academic studies and no less so than in Virtual Heritage. History has been described as the geography of places past, for the past does not exist exclusively in time but in space. Since heritage represents the visible and invisible relicts of places past, so the Spatial Turn has become a point of retrospection for rebalancing an overemphasis on historicism and reinstating the inherent placeness of human life and the power relations implicit in space. This paper draws upon advances in 3D GIS, Virtual Reality, Serious Gaming, and cultural geography to elaborate on these themes and to suggest possible outcomes of value to Virtual Heritage and those interested in places past. A case study explores the potential for a sensuous, spatial, and emotive Virtual Heritage, drawing on the powerful writings of Rebecca Harding Davis and set in Wheeling (West) Virginia on the eve of the U.S. Civil War.