Representation Of Heritage Research Articles

Vandalism as a Mode of Visual Sovereignty: A New Definition and Complications Arising

ABSTRACT Visual sovereignty refers to indigenous groups’ authority in the imagery, representation, conservation, and meaning-making of visual heritage belonging to them. While visual sovereignty is often discussed in terms of making, with a focus on art, photography, and filmmaking, this article will discuss it in terms of unmaking. Vandalism—the deliberate destruction of, or performative reconstitution of, public art, monuments, and/or statuary—may be used as a mode of visual sovereignty, where, with clear communication, marginalised indigenous groups are able to guide the representation and meaning-making around visual heritage belonging to them. Certain critical factors should be followed to ensure the success of the unmaking of prescribed representations. Still, vandalism as a mode of visual sovereignty is fraught with complications—as this article shows through the case of the destroyed Krotoa bench in Cape Town, South Africa. In as much as unmaking may be considered an important part of identity recovery, it can only have lasting positive effects if it is coupled with making, and since indigenous perspectives are rarely homogeneous, upholding the dignity of other members of the group should be paramount in decision-making surrounding the use of vandalism in meaning-making of visual heritage. The weakness of vandalism as a mode of visual sovereignty should thus be considered.

EKSPLORASI KARAKTERISTIK TENUN CUAL SEBAGAI IDENTITAS MASYARAKAT MELAYU SAMBAS DAN TANTANGAN DALAM UPAYA PELESTARIANNYA

Sambas Traditional Weaving Craft is one of Indonesia's cultural riches and heritages that has high artistic and cultural value. Sambas Traditional Weaving Craft is a source of livelihood for the local community, as well as an important representation of cultural identity and historical heritage for the Sambas Malay community. This study aims to identify the characteristics of Sambas Cual Weaving and identify challenges in its preservation efforts. The approach used is qualitative research with data collection methods through observation, semi-structured in-depth interviews, and secondary data collection (document studies). Informants were selected purposively. The results of the study show the unique characteristics of Sambas Cual Weaving, which include aspects of its distinctiveness and differences, manufacturing techniques, motifs and patterns as well as the texture and color of the fabric. The main challenges faced in efforts to preserve Sambas Cual Weaving include: ageing craftsmen and increasingly rare skills, declining interest from the younger generation, challenges in economic feasibility and sustainability, and previous knowledge and skills that are not perfectly inherited.

Commingled Art and Commingled Culture

From 1896, when the first Kinetoscope was brought to Japan, to the early 1920s, all film screenings were accompanied by a live Japanese narrator called the benshi.Benshi stood to the left of the film screen and—speaking in melodious rhythms—provided narration, character impersonation, explanation of western exotica, and offered general commentary and critique for the then silent films. In late ninteenth-century Japan, film was not seen as an autonomous medium but rather as "commingled” media, comprised of vocal storytelling and projected motion pictures. This was in part due to long-standing Japanese theatrical traditions such as temple and itinerant etoki, the Japanese Buddhist practice in which monks use picture scrolls to expound Buddhist principles.4 Benshi performers drew upon such theatrical heritage to describe the foreign film apparatus, thereby fragmenting the filmic system of representation and instilling a distinct culture of critical independence in Japanese silent film audiences. This essay contributes to scholarly debates regarding “commingled” media, the juxtaposition of heterogeneous media, which is reflective of unique Japanese artistic culture. It provides a case study of Benshi Tokugawa Musei’s performance of the 1920 silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene) recorded at the Kinokuniya Hall in Tokyo in 1968.7 This remaining work by Tokugawa Musei, a renowned benshi of the silent film era, offers insight into interactions between the benshi and silent film as it relates to Japanese traditions of “commingled” media.

Critical Ethics for Communicating Indigenous Craft Practices

Abstract This article explores questions of critical ethics for communicating Indigenous craft practices through the lens of a project undertaken in Brazil in 2021–2022. The project was a collaboration between educators at the Royal College of Art, London, Universidade de Brasília, Brazil, and the Munduruku inhabitants who live in Bragança-Marituba, Pará, Brazil. It resulted in a “living” repository of craft practices and Indigenous Knowledge, incorporated into an online village library. The ethical and methodological questions this raised, especially around the issue of intercultural communication and critical librarianship, offered fresh ways of documenting the representation of Indigenous craft knowledge and traditional cultural heritage and point to how design history can be “owned” by a community.

Trends of Biomechanics in Reforming Traditional Chinese Theatre

Traditional Chinese theatre has a centuries-old history. Although this process has experienced its ups and downs, actors’ skills in traditional Chinese theatre have not been completely lost; they have been passed down from one generation to another up to the present time. Especially in modern China, traditional Chinese theatre inherits traditions and, at the same time, it is constantly updated, continuously striving for versatility and modernisation. After Meyerhold’s death, the development of biomechanics was suspended for political reasons; however, owing to the study and revival of Meyerhold’s theatrical heritage by subsequent generations, a set of systematic performance methods has gradually formed. In the process of their development, these two methods (biomechanics and the skill of traditional Chinese theatre) have some common features.

Muslim Tatars in the Kama area sketches by K.F. Goon

The subject of the research in the article is the visual materials of the 1862-1863, reflecting the features of the costume complex of the Volga-Ural Tatars and its images depending on the time, theoretical and practical knowledge about the peoples living in a certain region and the representation of material heritage, through the socio-cultural perception of the artist K.F. Gun. Based on the results of the work, it was revealed that the artist executed the images in urban and rural settlements, designated class differences through the features of the costume complex - the materials used, multi-part headdresses and their differences from each other, decorative elements and ornaments. He was the first to distinguish between the differences in clothing that existed in private and public spaces, and actualized it in the images he created where the characteristic features of gender and age differences were revealed by the pictures of the costumes. However, it is necessary to highlight the controversial points in the images that were found in the works of K.F. Gun – atypical headdresses, analogues of which have not survived in museums or private collections; errors in administrative-territorial division, when the artist sketched the same people in different provinces, according to his signatures; confusion in peoples, for example - the ambiguous costume complex of the starokryashen Tatars (the Baptized Tatars), closer to the clothing of the Votyaks (Udmurts).

Impacto de los videojuegos narrativos en la percepción del patrimonio cultural: un análisis cualitativo de Assassin's Creed en estudiantes universitarios

Research on the interaction of students with educational video games that integrate elements of cultural heritage remains limited. Generally, studies focus on the mediation of educators in this interaction or on the direct analysis of the games. This has created a gap in our understanding of the meanings that students develop on their own while playing these video games. This study, based on qualitative interviews, examines the video game franchise Assassin's Creed, which recreates various historical periods and cultures through detailed narratives and settings. Participants indicated that the game offered them an immersive perspective on cultural heritage, different from the traditional educational experience in classrooms. They expressed a personal connection with non-playable characters (NPCs) and gained a more detailed and realistic understanding of the diverse perspectives in these natural, cultural, and social environments. Furthermore, they were willing to let their perceptions of cultural heritage be shaped by the game and reflected on the ethical and social implications of heritage representation in digital media. However, they showed a tendency to overlook opportunities for a more critical and in-depth analysis of these digital experiences. This highlights the need to explore strategies to foster a critical approach in the study of gaming experiences and underscores the importance of strengthening the human connection with heritage in heritage education.

Dive Into the Past: Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage Represented in Chinese Mobile Games

This study delves into the representation of intangible Chinese cultural heritage in Chinese mobile games. Nowadays, even with huge economic potential, Chinese mobile games are still faced with negative comments, especially from parents. To develop their reputation, Chinese mobile games have portrayed considerate Chinese intangible cultural heritage (ICH). The representation of cultural heritage in video games has been a subject of discussion for a long time, while console and computer games and tangible cultural heritage have been at the centre of academic studies. Hence, we strived to investigate how Chinese ICH is depicted in Chinese mobile games. A thematic analysis was conducted on data collected through analytical gameplay of 30 Chinese mobile games selected from Apple’s App Store and the Chinese TapTap platform. Our analysis indicates that Chinese ICH is represented in Chinese mobile games to fulfil the persona of game characters, to create a more engaging and immersive game world experience, to provide more intense combat moments, to offer visually enjoyable virtual goods, and to deliver culturally driven updates during traditional festivals. Among the various forms of Chinese ICH, Chinese traditional craftsmanship is found to be used most frequently because of the huge effort it requires to be mastered, which could be educational to players. Theatrical traditions were found to be depicted in most game elements because they combine visual, audio, and motional elements. Lastly, folk and classical literature is portrayed in Chinese mobile games to provide a narrative resource that culturally resonates with players.

Visualisation Design-Driven Research on Non-Heritage Dissemination and Digital Reproduction

This paper is entitled "Study on the Dissemination and Digital Reproduction of Non-heritage Driven by Visualization Design". Against the background of the rapid development of digital information technology in national development, the application of information visualization design in the dissemination and digital reproduction of intangible cultural heritage is discussed. Through the dissemination of digital media and the production and analysis of visualization, the dissemination and digital representation of intangible cultural heritage is promoted. The research in this paper focuses on the dissemination and digital reproduction of intangible cultural heritage, aiming to make readers pay attention to intangible culture through visualization design visual presentation and to guide the development direction for intangible heritage inheritance and development.

Historical Depictions, Archaeological Practices, and the Construct of Cultural Heritage in Commercial Video Games: The Role of These Games in Raising Awareness

Abstract Concerns regarding the historical accuracy, archaeological practices, and representation of cultural heritage (CH) in commercial video games (VGs) have fueled unending debates about their educational value. However, beyond offering interactive and engaging narratives, it is argued that these games play a vital role in CH. This work delves into the complexities inherent in representing history, archaeology, and CH within commercial VGs. It examines the portrayal of CH as a construct within these games, underscores the importance of collaborative efforts – between game developers, heritage professionals, and members of the communities represented – in their development, and highlights instances where commercial VGs can foster CH awareness. While many commercial VGs touch upon history and archaeology or embody diverse cultures as the platform for their narratives, the focus is placed on Shadow of the Tomb Raider to illustrate the many points found in this work because the game is said to ethically come close to representing the effects of archaeology on local populations and descendants of ancient people. The aim is to catalyze discussions among educators, researchers, game developers, heritage experts, and other stakeholders about the role of commercial VGs in enhancing learning and promoting consciousness about matters vital to cultural identities.

The spatial narratives and representation of slavery and colonial heritage on guided tours in Amsterdam

ABSTRACT Amidst increasing societal discussion on slavery and colonial heritage, tourism has emerged as a potential avenue to address such concerns. Yet, tourism and tour guiding suffers from a paradox. On the one hand, tourism narratives can form a part of an oppressive strategy in colonial approaches against socially excluded and marginalised groups while on the other hand, tourism can offer counter-narratives with progressive potential in transforming mindsets and enlarging perspectives. This article explores these conceptual issues in the context of guided city tours in Amsterdam utilising a qualitative case study design involving participant observation and interviews. We identify the spatial narratives tour guides use to (re)present slavery and colonial heritage, and the factors shaping these narratives. We make two main contributions to the literature. Firstly, we identify how the need for positive atmosphere and good vibes are central to the extent to which tour guides are willing to engage tourists with slavery and colonial narratives in the city. Secondly, we offer a spatial mapping of slavery and colonial heritage narratives offered on tours through Amsterdam. Our study therefore contributes to evidencing how tourism, and tour guides hold transformative potential in dealing with slavery and heritage in an European urban setting.

EXPLORING THE CHENNAMANGALAM SAREES OF KERALA

India's economy is heavily reliant on the fashion industry, which boasts a rich array of traditional textiles. Among these, the Chennamangalam sarees stand out as a vivid representation of the nation's heritage. Hand-loomed in the village of Chennamangalam in Kerala, these sarees feature intricate designs and vibrant hues, showcasing the creative and technological prowess passed down through generations. Crafted by skilled artisans using locally sourced fabrics, these sarees are renowned for their stunning designs and sustainable materials, preserving traditional craftsmanship and environmentally responsible methods. They appeal to style enthusiasts seeking a blend of modernism and heritage, making them highly sought-after both domestically and internationally. By combining sustainability with style and heritage with innovation, Chennamangalam sarees are poised to make a significant impact on the global market for Indian textiles. This paper thoroughly examines Chennamangalam sarees, focusing on their rich history, intricate weaving techniques, and cultural significance. It also explores their entry into the global market, the support systems that sustain the craft, and the current dynamics of supply and demand. Providing valuable insights for participants in the textile industry, this study offers a comprehensive review of the opportunities and challenges facing Chennamangalam sarees in the future.

A heterotopic reading of heritage: The Village of Our Lady in Ka Ho, Macau

Postcolonial Macau is keen to celebrate its colonial legacy to preserve its cultural distinctiveness. This study explores the reordering of a Portuguese colonial site, the Village of Our Lady in Ka Ho, into an architectural heritage in the broader postcolonial context. Employing the Foucauldian concept of ‘other spaces’, specifically ‘utopia’ and ‘heterotopia’, the study argues for the heterotopic nature of heritage. It identifies the discourses and material representations of heritage, their construction and their mirroring of mainstream social ideals. Heritage as heterotopia is a conceptual entity that informs and is realised with material objects. The discourse takes heritage spaces as mediums for performances through symbolic loading on material objects to demonstrate the space's otherness. In addition, colonial nostalgia emerges as a dominant narrative in shaping urban identity. The primary proposition of this research is that heritage is made through othering, and the otherness of heritage is presented through performing. Heritage‐making transforms the site from a ‘heterotopia of deviation’ to a ‘heterotopia of performance’, which reveals the societal transition from early modernity that advocates for scientific knowledge to postmodernity that embraces neoliberalism, and then to the arriving era of post‐postmodernity based on performatism.

A Comparative Analysis of Pakistani and Indian Social Media Memes: Cultural Narratives and Social Understandings

This study investigates the sociological impact and linguistic characteristics of Pakistani and Indian memes, focusing on their occurrence on social media sites, and explores how these digital expressions influence cultural stories and public opinions. Employing content analysis, a diverse collection of memes were analyzed to identify themes, linguistic elements, and cultural references attached to the memes under study. Besides, the study seeks to uncover the distinctions between memes in Pakistan and India, their appeal to viewers, and their impact on and representation of social norms, political opinions, and cultural heritage. The study focuses on comprehending the language, humor, and visual elements used to effectively convey messages from memes in different countries. The research embraces cultural essence and offers a thorough examination of how memes influence public opinion and cultural narratives in Pakistan and India. The finding reveals that memes have evolved as powerful tools for social interaction, self-expression, and cultural commentary in digital networks. Study highlights the importance of memes in modern discourse and emphasizes to understand the symbolic meaning of memes for deeper knowledge in their sociological and dialectal aspects.

Multivocality and Its Implications for the Representation of Heritage: A Case Study of the Slavery Heritage in Mikindani, Tanzania

This article, by using evidence from the old town of Mikindani in Tanzania, explores multivocality in the memorialization of the slavery heritage in Mikindani. It also looks at how multivocality perpetuates dissonance and shapes cultural negotiations and the people’s strategies for coping with violent memories. It employed the notion of heritage dissonance and integrated heritage discourse and a qualitative case-study design. Thirty-three respondents were interviewed and three focus group discussion sessions were held. The findings support the argument that multivocality is an inherent part of heritage that shapes the dissonance regarding what should be conserved and heritage meaning-making processes. Multivocality and the resultant dissonance are further shaped by a complex mix of demographic dynamics, socio-cultural contexts, including religious values, identity struggles, the community’s articulation of the theoretical apparatus, political contexts, including power relations, the local or state political standing, the cultural heritage management (CHM) approach in place, and economic contexts, including the forward-looking nature of the younger people based on the tourist potential of the heritage. Although the resultant dissonance may be passive, it is embedded with the inert social tensions that may not necessarily be harmful to the heritage, but which provide potential spaces for conducting cultural negotiations that strive to defuse the boundaries of identities and the moral superiority–inferiority dogma. This article notes that multivocality should neither be ignored nor evaded, as it could be embraced as a medium for unlocking the sedimentation of a single discourse, understanding and addressing different experiences and expressions and resolving conflicts. The article also provides practical suggestions to the CHM authorities in Mikindani and related sites, as well as suggestions for further research.

(Re)framing built heritage through the machinic gaze

Built heritage has been both subject and product of a gaze that has been sustained through moments of colonial fixation on ruins and monuments, technocratic examination and representation, and fetishisation by a global tourist industry. We argue that the recent proliferation of machine learning and vision technologies create new scopic regimes for heritage: storing and retrieving existing images from vast digital archives, and further imparting their own distortions upon this gaze. We introduce the term ‘ machinic gaze’ to conceptualise the reconfiguration of heritage representation via artificial intelligence (AI) models. To explore how this gaze reframes heritage, we deploy an image-text-image pipeline that reads, interprets, and resynthesizes images of several UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Employing two concepts from media studies— heteroscopia and anamorphosis—we describe the reoriented perspective that machine vision systems introduce. We propose that the machinic gaze highlights the artifice of the human gaze and its underlying assumptions and practices that combine to form established notions of heritage.

Formation Process and Spatial Representation of Tourist Destination Personality from the Perspective of Cultural Heritage: Application in Traditional Villages in Ancient Huizhou, China

Tourism destinations are cultural heritage and spatial landscape systems of organic coexistence between humans and the Earth, and are formed through the long historical evolution of a specific geographical environment. With the development of large-scale cultural and tourism projects and the construction of scenic areas, many tourist destinations face conflicts between people and the environment and the crisis of discontinuity in the landscape and the cultural context. The concept of tourist destination personality provides a perspective for studying the interaction between humans and the environment in tourist destinations. However, existing research has not delved into the mechanisms of temporal–spatial interaction and spatial representation of regional cultural heritage in regional systems. Therefore, from the perspectives of geography and urban–rural planning, this study selects traditional villages in ancient Huizhou as the research object and employs relevant theories from cultural ecology to construct a paradigm for analyzing the formation path of tourist destination personality based on a cultural core from a regional systemic perspective. Building on this, this study develops a coupling analysis framework for the “accumulation anchoring” of heritage landscape representation in traditional villages in ancient Huizhou based on a cognitive understanding of tourist destination heritage landscape and a ‘time–space’ interactive model. The research reveals that the formation of personality in traditional villages in ancient Huizhou centers around cultural cores such as production methods, social organizations, construction mechanisms, and social beliefs. It is driven by basic forces such as resource endowment vitality, a social structure driving force, and a historical choice regulatory force, with the logic of forming dominant functions and obtaining expected benefits such as the core. The spatial representation of traditional village heritage in ancient Huizhou exhibits a synergistic evolution mechanism between ‘culture and landscape’. The research process and conclusions provide a basic framework and methodological system for the study of tourist destination personality and heritage revitalization, expanding the understanding of the process of human–environment interaction and spatial patterns in tourist destinations.

The symbolic politics of cultural heritage: a view from Portugal

This paper highlights the centrality of the social representation of cultural heritage for the symbolic legitimization of a regime and the foundation of its social and cultural policies. The relevance attributed to history, its codification into heritage and the formation of a collective memory are indeed arenas of social practice, power and hegemony. The Portuguese example is a good one, because one can compare contrasting visions of the authoritarian regime of Salazar and those of the new and current democratic order. We examine how the Portuguese democracy has reconstructed a national consensus regarding the interpretation of national history and identity; we consider the role of the new interpretation in the redefining of the Portuguese placement in the world system; and some conclusions will be tentatively drawn from this case study.

Abstract P493: A Multivariate Analysis of Genetic Risk Scores for Heart Failure and Left Ventricular Mass Derived From Multi-Ancestry Populations and Left Ventricular Mass Amongst African Americans: The Jackson Heart Study

Background: Increased left ventricular (LV) mass is an outcome of LV remodeling that can result in development of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), a maladaptive disorder that increases the risk of heart failure. Elevated LV mass is a sensitive predictor of adverse cardiovascular events. African Americans experience a disproportionate burden of heart failure risk and development of LVH. The influence of genetics on this health disparity is unclear and a topic of interest. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have uncovered many variants associated with numerous adverse cardiovascular outcomes, such as heart failure and LV phenotypes. However, the relevance of these studies for African Americans may be limited as these analyses have been conducted in multi-ancestry populations with limited representation of African heritage. The question of whether these genetic risk variants can be used to predict LV phenotypes in an independent African American population remains unanswered. Hypothesis: Variant loci that have been associated with heart failure and LV mass in multi-ancestry populations will be associated with LV mass amongst African Americans in the Jackson Heart Study (JHS). Methods: Thirty-nine (39) SNPs associated with heart failure and ten (10) SNPs associated with LV mass were identified from two published studies in which participants of African ancestry or Black individuals comprised less than 15% and 2%, respectively. Using the published effect size estimates, genetic risk scores (GRSs) for heart failure and LV mass were computed for 2,175 African American participants (mean age 55, 63% female) in the JHS with complete data and consent for genetic research. We assessed the linear association of heart failure and LV mass GRSs with LV mass indexed to height (LVM h ) and indexed to body surface area (LVM bsa ). A multivariate general linear model was fit to both LVM h and LVM bsa containing both GRS predictors and accounting for age, sex, BMI (mean 31.5), diabetes (22%), and hypertension (52%). No multicollinearity was noted among these explanatory variables using variance inflation factors. Due to non-constant error variance, a log transformation was conducted on both LV mass response variables. Type III MANOVA Pillai tests were run to assess the effects of the GRSs on the log LVM bsa and log LVM h values. Conclusion: When accounting for age, BMI, sex, diabetes, and hypertension, we found that neither the heart failure GRS (p-val = 0.4012) nor the LV mass GRS (p-val = 0.8332) had an effect on both log LVM bsa and log LVM h . There is insufficient evidence to suggest that heart failure and LV mass variants derived from predominantly European multi-ancestry populations are linearly associated with log LV mass amongst African Americans in the Jackson Heart Study. Our work highlights the need for greater recruitment and targeted studies of populations with African ancestry for GWAS of LV phenotypes.

Analytical Evaluation of Midjourney Architectural Virtual Lab: Defining Major Current Limits in AI-Generated Representations of Islamic Architectural Heritage

In artificial intelligence (AI), generative systems, most notably Midjourney, have tremendous power to generate creative images of buildings and sites of Islamic architectural heritage through text-to-image generation based on the internet. The AI-generated representations have significant potential for architects, specialists, and everyday users. However, the system has considerable limitations when generating images for some buildings and sites where the representations appear too far from their original represented structures. Evaluating Midjourney as an architectural virtual lab, this research article attempts to define the major current limitations of using Midjourney’s AI system in producing images similar to the actual buildings and sites of Islamic architectural heritage. This research employs prompt engineering techniques based on historical sources as inputs to examine the accuracy of the output of the AI-generated images of selected examples of structures of the Islamic tradition. To validate the research results, it compares the Midjourney output with the original look by employing direct observation through critical analysis of human intelligence (HI) facilitated by the analysis of the latest version of 3M Visual Attention Software and an online survey. It concludes that while Midjourney can represent high-end AI-generated images inspired by the Islamic tradition, it currently falls short of presenting the actual appearance of some of its original structures. Furthermore, it categorizes these limitations into four groups: (1) limits of the prompt, (2) limits of fame, (3) limits of regionality and historical styles, and (4) limits of architectural elements and details. The significance of this research lies in providing timely evaluation factors to architectural heritage practitioners and software developers. This practical article is the second in a series of two sequential articles in the Buildings journal; the first (theoretical) article introduces the concept of Artificial Intelligence Islamic Architecture (AIIA), answering the question: what is Islamic architecture in the age of artificial intelligence?