The exploration of lived experience in medieval buildings through the use of digital technologies

Abstract

For the last twenty years phenomenology has been an intensely discussed topic in prehistoric archaeology. The phenomenological way of thinking has taken steps to embrace an understanding of the past based on bodily experience in the world. However, this process has been rarely applied to medieval studies despite a much richer dataset. Phenomenology has initiated a number of discussions concerning how we can think about human experience in the past (the lived experience of the past).

The phenomenological approach has been criticised for a lack of methodological robustness and for being overly subjective. In the same period archaeological computing has developed alternative frameworks for sensory interaction with the material evidence of the past, and with its varied interpretations. Its underlying methodologies have been similarly critiqued, and also interconnected with phenomenological and other models for experience. Critiques of archaeological computing have been asking the same questions as those of phenomenology: namely how do we deal with uncertainty and subjectivity when interpreting the archaeological record.

In this thesis I suggest digital techniques in archaeological computing that can offer new routes to approaching human experience in the medieval past. I present two case studies that demonstrate alternative and complementary techniques to explore the notion and implementation of a digital “lived experience” of late medieval buildings.

My first case study based at Bodiam Castle uses visualisation techniques to explore the lived experience of the private apartments. I propose a mixed media approach for the presentation of visualisations. In my second case study I move away from visual experience of medieval sites. I present an assessment of a series of auralizations of Ightham Mote. The conclusions demonstrate that digital techniques that work across senses can provide a robust mechanism for exploring the concept of lived experience, and for exploring the lived experience of specific medieval buildings.

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ORCID for Graeme Earl: orcid.org/0000-0001-9077-4605

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