This year has been a strange one so far. The first months of this year saw me suffering from chronic back pain, and finding the road towards being pain free. I’m on that road, but not at the end of it yet. So, a bit of a setback.
I’m typing this on my new sit/stand electrically adjustable desk perched on an ‘active’ stool, standing on a soft rug. Some will view this as laughably hipster, others with back pain will know that anything is worth a try. It’s definitely helping.
Now that I’m easing back into work, I’ve got a number of projects underway. I’m working on another shipwreck project on the Isles of Scilly to create accessible tours of a group of wrecks, and I have a number of 3D archaeological recording contracts booked in. It’s always nice to do some gentle fieldwork. It might be a while before I’ll be able to dig again!
Yesterday saw me recording a voiceover for a shipwreck dive video. It was nice to dust off some old skills and try out some new software. I think the result sounds good. I don’t particularly like the sound of my own voice, but I am used to it after years of recording podcasts.
Along with a nearby colleague, I have undertaken another survey of the medieval Market Cross here in Penzance, where we have combined photogrammetry, Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), traditional measured survey, and photography. We hope to produce the clearest possible images of the inscriptions and decorations and work with a specialist in medieval writing to see if we can provide an updated view of this important monument.
I’m also planning some meetings with museums in Cornwall to introduce the idea of 3D recording and public dissemination of their collections via Sketchfab. There are so many wonderful objects in the stores of Cornish museums, rarely if ever being displayed. As 3D scanning becomes easier, and the benefits are realised, I’m sure that this will become a rapidly growing area. I have my first meeting on Monday at a small museum that punches well above its weight.
Tehmina and I are planning a month-long trip to New Zealand this July/August, which is part of her work as Cornwall’s ACE supported Changer Makers programme. We will visit many of New Zealand’s museums for Tehmina’s research, and I hope to investigate how technology is being used to record and interpret the shared pasts of the diverse groups of people who live there.
We have also joined the Folklore Society to access their journals and become more widely involved in the field of folklore research. As practitioners of some traditional Cornish customs (mainly “guise dancing” – a kind of mumming using disguises during the Christmas period) we have begun to thoroughly research it with the aim of producing academic and popular articles to draw attention to this wonderful tradition. We have discovered some wonderful things and even talked to some very elderly people who took part in guise dancing in the 1920s-40s. But that is another blog post all of its own…
So, now we’re nearly half way through 2017, here’s to a productive and enjoyable, and hopefully more spinally flexible rest of the year. With any luck, and I say this each year, I’ll write a little more.