Bringing a building into being: A Virtual Reality Application as a non-traditional research output. Issue 2 (1st September 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Westin, Jonathan; Almevik, Gunnar
• Is Part Of: Craft research. Volume 13:Issue 2(2022)
• Page Start: 285
• Page End: 302
• Publication Date: 2022-09-01
• Subjects: Handicraft -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Handicraft -- Periodicals; 680
• DOI: 10.1386/crre_00080_1
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2040-4689

Abstract

This article sets out from the digital reconstruction of a historic building and assesses and discusses the use of a Virtual Reality Application as a self-standing research output. Despite the recognized possibilities and the amount of research that goes into the creation of scientific virtual reconstructions, there is still a need for broadly accepted procedures to not only publish them but also incorporate them into the academic systems as research outputs in their own right. The empirical material ‐ a digital reconstruction of a wooden stave church ‐ is here explored as both a hermeneutic device in the research process and a research output. We argue that the use of technology such as virtual reality that can communicate presence is particularly important in research on embodied craft skills and sensory-based judgements to reduce the loss of information in translations between modes, medias and formats. However, to function and have an impact as a research output, new formats have to adapt to fundamental and broadly accepted conventions within academia which have been established by the text-on-paper formats and establish conventions that facilitate access, navigation and referencing.