Reconstrução digital: narrativas virtuais e um novo lugar para a memória

Abstract

The evolution of digital technologies and recent episodes of the destruction of cultural heritage assets have been determinants for the large production of digital reconstruction models of monuments, sites, and historical artefacts. Also, the contemporary hybrid condition of the real and virtual world has demanded digitising the physical world and the construction of digital models applicable to various uses. The position of heritage protection agencies has often encouraged reconstruction as a form of political reaffirmation against extremists and strengthening the resilience of communities. Less controversial and reversible, digital reconstruction aims to represent disappeared monuments and objects, visually restoring them to a given moment in their history. It is also widely used as scientific documents in virtual archaeology, as a promotion of tourism and museum dissemination, as well as a form of resilience in overcoming the loss of destroyed heritage. This research starts from the hypothesis that the understanding of digital reconstruction models is a component of historical and archaeological narratives constructed by a narrator-modeller who makes choices, prioritises aspects and defines the story to be told. Thus, it aims to understand and demonstrate the dimension of digital reconstruction as a digital method and product and propose an extension of the concept of digital reconstruction from the perspective of understanding it as an interpretive process dependent on the interpreter and creator. To achieve these objectives, this thesis proposed to execute a practical project of digital reconstruction and develop digital reconstruction models of the buildings of the historical site of the Convent of Santo Antônio do Paraguaçu, proposing a form of registration and access to paradata and developing virtual narratives to contemplate the theoretical constructions raised. From the proposed developments, it was possible to identify that there is a conceptual simplification of digital reconstruction, as it does not comprehend all of its aspects. It was evidenced that digital reconstruction results from a series of interpretations and decisions, characterising the digital model produced as a cognitive object, a synthesis of an intellectual process based on references to the physical object it represents, while at the same time being a repository of knowledge and a synthesis of this knowledge, by bringing with it the knowledge of heterogeneous sources. Nevertheless, the importance of recording this intellectual process as a guarantee of transparency and scientific reliability has become a requirement of heritage institutions, and despite what many authors have proposed, the feasibility of simple solutions for these records (paradata) has been verified, once it is noted that the heart of this issue lies more in the ethical stance of the researcher-modeller than in the technology itself. In the conclusion of this research, it was verified that the virtual narratives developed serve as an arena for the constitution of different versions of history. These have been configured as the primary support for disseminating heritage and investigative, interpretive, and decision-making intellectual work that produces knowledge, not restricting but opening up new possibilities for interpreting history.