As someone who has spent a long time studying the complexities of material imitation (ie, #Skeuomorphism), I find myself increasingly intrigued and troubled by this hierarchy between copy and prototype in our digitisation/3D model discourse. 4/

I want to add here that I am in no way an expert in digital objects, but I’ve been doing some reading and a lot more listening and I think there’s an avenue of study here that merits further attention (in fact, I believe I recently rt a funded phd more or less on this topic). 5/

What I do know about are skeuomorphs - the topic of my dphil! What it boils down to is: copies are not facsimiles devoid of other meaning, effect or affordance. The act of copying – of pushing forms across materials – is also one of reinterpretation and appropriation. 6/

The materials, the technologies, the people who engage with the copy (and/or the prototype) all affect its impact, meaning, understanding and use. More than that, copies themselves—in drawing on the numinous tension of mimesis—can be incredibly powerful things. 7/

In many ways, I think that 3D models used in mus contexts might be more powerful than the glass-cased originals – visitors can interact directly; they can be held, manipulated, shared – they have greater capacity for unmediated personal and personalised interpretation. 8/

Digitisation has this incredible capacity to allow for things otherwise kept apart to be made real, tangible and manipulable. A digital roman tombstone can read its inscription aloud, digital drums can be played and digital toys can be played with. 9/

We keep making these digital things, but I’m not sure we really understand what they are DOING and how they are valued by people not immersed in the heritage/authenticity discourse. Skeuomorphs are weird and powerful and important... 10/

they are not subsidiary to their prototype, but very much their own thing AND ALSO a thing in dialogue with a prototype. In this way that can carry many meanings, act in many spheres, do 'work' that is manifestly different than the prototype 11/

Maybe we should be thinking about what our 3D model will DO the next time we scan or print a priceless treasure (maybe we should be scanning more of the stuff in boxes too, there’s a lot of material in museums no one looks at – digital freedom might be one solution) 12/

Anyhow, these are preliminary thoughts - i'd welcome comments from someone more embedded in the #DigitalArchaeology world, more familiar with the literature around digital objects, etc. Definitely open to more dialogue/collaboration here if this framing seems useful :) 13/13

(postscript: the digital object - and via that a 3D print also has the potential to transgress the limitations of the prototype's materials... i don't think we've even scratched the surface on the power of transgressive remixes in this space - work by @clmorgan useful here)