University of Dundee (UoD) PhD student is embarking on trip to digitally reconstruct the whaling industry of a sub Antarctic island in a study study, supported by the South Georgia Heritage Trust (SGHT).
UoD writes:
This month sees the departure of University of Dundee (UoD) PhD student Scott Smith on a unique two-month research trip to the island of South Georgia to use computer animation techniques to visually depict its now abandoned industrial whaling sites. The study, supported by the South Georgia Heritage Trust (SGHT) should enable tourists and visitors to better engage with the island’s cultural history as part of SGHT’s remit to preserve and develop the island’s heritage.
Previously a Senior Lecturer and Programme Director in 3D Computer Animation at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Smith, 42, is an academic expert in computer animation. Now studying at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD) at UoD, Smith is exploring the way that computer visualisation of cultural heritage is presented to a population, and the effect that has on how people learn and recall information across varying interactive platforms.
South Georgia is a remote and largely hostile environment due to its geographic location in the Southern Atlantic Ocean at the point of Antarctic convergence. The former whaling station at Grytviken hosts the burial site of the great explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and a museum managed by SGHT, the co-founders of Smith’s research trip. The museum, based in a former whaling manager’s villa, charts the history of the island’s whaling heritage and will be Smith’s base during his visit. Once home to several industrial whaling sites and some 2,000 workers, with the cessation of whaling in the 1960s, the community vanished in one season. Today the island has no permanent residents, save for a small number of scientists inhabiting the British Antarctic Research Stations, Government Officials and the seasonal museum team.
The island provides Smith with opportunity for an excellent case study for his research. Smith says, ‘The main objective of the research is to take the existing knowledge of the whaling stations on South Georgia Island and repackage it, be it cinema, virtual reality, computer or mobile screen displays that enables a wider public understanding of the historical context and cultural heritage of the whaling industry.’
Smith is now a naturalised British citizen, and originally hails from Kansas, USA where he has drawn some sensitive parallels with the desolate landscape of South Georgia. ‘Many parts of Kansas have areas of ghost towns, abandoned in some cases because of the changing industrial farming practices that happened in the 20th century. Small towns centred on communities of family farms shrank and disappeared as larger conglomerates came into being. The subsequent dust bowls of the 1930s made the land very infertile and drove populations away.
On South Georgia, the loss of the whaling industry has had a fundamental impact on the island’s habitation and much of the former bustling whaling stations lie empty, although the area’s native flora and fauna have made significant recoveries since the end of the commercial whaling in the region. Computer visualisation can be a very effective way of preserving the practices that once shaped and served communities.’
Smith’s research project is supported by the SGHT, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Swedish explorer Dr. Frederik Paulsen, the Government of South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands, and the Association for Industrial Archaeology (AIA) providing Smith with a Peter Neaverson Student Travel Bursary.
Professor Bjorn Basberg, a Trustee of SGHT, who was recently awarded the AIA Peter Neavison Award for Outstanding Scholarship, is an advisor of Smith’s research project and will accompany him for some of the trip. The island receives many visitors and tourists coming to see its rich and diverse wildlife and Basberg believes Smith’s research could be pivotal in their comprehension of its history.
Basberg says, ‘Computer animation is one way to visualise how these former industrial sites looked and operated. Scott Smith’s project will be of value for visitors understanding the remains of these complex former industrial plants as well as giving insight into the island’s unique heritage.’
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