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Ty ler
1986
), allegory (Clifford
1986
), and image (Ifantidis
2013
;Bradley
2010
),
because of the limitations of the representational process.
The augmentative character of art could be exploited to evoke complexity and
replace a simple visual representation with fractal-like augmentative series of
images that will augment the meaning of the initial image. In this perspective, a mix
between art and science like art-chaeology (Gheorghiu
2009a
,
b
,
c
,
d
; Gheorghiu
2012b
), could, through the rhetorical use of augmentation, function as an evocative
instrument to approach the archaeological record (Gheorghiu
2012a
). This is the
central idea of the current chapter, which intends to present the techniques of
Augmented Reality as an artistic process, labelled ARt or Art-chaeology.
The knowledge of the Past is important not only for science but also for the
local communities, in the case of the latter especially for the development of the
local identity, as well as for the practical aspects of economic development arising
from tourism. Another aspect, also very important, is the salvaging of the immaterial
heritage. It is well known that (UNESCO 2003 Convention
1
) the immaterial heritage
is as important as the material one, as it refers to the know-how of contemporary
traditional and urban societies.
We will present a case study of the salvage of the immaterial heritage using AR
techniques carried out within the research project “Time Maps. Real communities,
Virtual Worlds, Experimented Pasts” (Grant PN II IDEI).
2
This project examines
the rescue of the immaterial heritage and its transmission to future generations,
while attempting at the same time to evoke the complexity of the Past through
AR techniques. Although “Time Maps” is developing simultaneously in several
locations in Europe, the current discussion will be limited to only one site where the
ARt-chaeology strategy was applied for a longer period of time, namely the Vadastra
village, situated in the Danube Plain in the south of Romania (Gheorghiu
2001
).
“Time Maps” extends the search area for immaterial heritage up to ancient
technologies, which today are not yet considered “heritage”. Today's archaeological
approach is still limited to the process of conducting the scientific experiment
(Mathieu
2002
, but see also Gheorghiu and Children
2011
), rather than preserving
the resulting technology. A way of presenting the immaterial heritage to the public
is through re-enactments, which are not recognised by the archaeological discipline
as being scientific approaches. Therefore, the two extremes that frame the access
to the immaterial heritage of ancient technologies are, on one hand, the scientific
experiment which insists on the “objectivity” of the approach, and on the other,
the re-enactment which insists on the phenomenological experience of the art
performance.
Consequently, a mix of the two strategies would create a synthesising approach
to ancient technologies, since it would simultaneously comprise their representation
and evocation. The question then becomes, how can one render ancient technologies
comprehensible and attractive for a twenty-first century public?
