{"id":7021,"date":"2018-05-13T09:26:40","date_gmt":"2018-05-13T09:26:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peerproduction.net\/editsuite\/?page_id=7021"},"modified":"2018-07-06T12:27:15","modified_gmt":"2018-07-06T12:27:15","slug":"in-situ-3d-printed-heritage-souvenirs","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/peerproduction.net\/editsuite\/issues\/issue-12-makerspaces-and-institutions\/peer-reviewed-papers\/in-situ-3d-printed-heritage-souvenirs\/","title":{"rendered":"In situ, 3D printed heritage souvenirs: Challenging conventional spaces and culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Samantha Vettesse & Constantia Anastasiadou<\/strong><\/p>\n

Open as PDF<\/a><\/p>\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/h2>\n

This paper outlines an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded Design Innovation Development Award project titled \u2018Enhancing the Authenticity and Sustainability of the Visitor Heritage Experience through 3D Printing Technology\u2019, undertaken in collaboration with the heritage organisation Historic Scotland at Stirling Castle, between academics in the Schools of Tourism and Design at Edinburgh Napier University. In this study, the research team produced a collection of 3D printed souvenirs in a variety of materials and scales on an Ultimaker 2 3D printer.\u00a0 It was set up within the castle next to one of the halls that formed part of a tour as a small, \u2018pop up\u2019 maker space and gift shop.<\/p>\n

The researchers invited visitors to take part in a short survey and then offered them a 3D printed item at the end (a small unicorn from Thingiverse to reflect the castle\u2019s branding).\u00a0 This study took place in situ to demonstrate the technology and processes involved with 3D printing and to engage the public and staff with the design process of 3D printing a souvenir from start to finish using these technologies and to experience, fleetingly, certain characteristics of a shared maker space.<\/p>\n

The project started with the idea that traditionally produced souvenirs can often be thought of as inauthentic, mass produced, cheap, meaningless objects that are not worthy of serious consideration. (Swanson, 2004) However, souvenirs may be viewed as texts that reveal meanings and events behind their production. They can, therefore, act as tangible evidence of a visit that enables a reliving of an experience and retains the memory of a special occasion and location. (Morgan and Pritchard, 2005) Additionally, souvenirs are expressions of highly personal individuality, sense of self, creativity and aesthetic taste. (Swanson and Timothy, 2012)<\/p>\n

Many contemporary museums and galleries have extended souvenirs\u2019 use as ‘memory triggers’, not only by expanding gift shop variety, but also by experimenting with digital technologies, such as ‘apps’, that allow the visitor to take home physical experiences and absorb them in their everyday lives, mediating place and enveloping the past with the present. (Tung and Ritchie, 2011) There are also instances of maker spaces being set up within the museum locus as educational tools to engage visitors with particular exhibitions or themes in interactive and creative ways.<\/p>\n

This study, in particular, concentrated on unlocking the potential of the established heritage attraction \u2018gift shop\u2019 and the personal significance of the souvenir object itself, employing many of the intrinsic qualities of an unregulated maker space, while exploring the dichotomies of this juxtaposed with commercial retail.<\/p>\n

Heritage environments and an understanding of the history, societal inclusivity and public ownership of the buildings and artefacts can be lost in the institutionalised approach that heritage is often presented and funded. This can be because of the conventional dissemination of exhibited information, charging entrance fees or commercial gift shop provision, potentially excluding and disengaging segments of the population and even the local community. It can also be that children and young people do not fully engage with traditional heritage educational materials. This study, through the use of in situ 3D printing and experiential souvenirs, challenges these concepts by adding digital making, customisation, peer production and interaction to this encounter. The ability to potentially customise and interact with the making of souvenirs that 3D printing heralds may create opportunities to escape the serial reproduction of culture and engage the visitor in the creation of personal meaning. (Richards and Wilson, 2006)<\/p>\n

This research also evaluates the outcomes of disrupting, through the introduction of several traits of a peer based maker space, a heritage retail environment, in this case frequented by a relatively affluent demographic with, arguably, \u2018cultural capital\u2019 (Bourdieu, 1984 : 43). This is defined as \u2018the sum of the resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition\u2019 and \u2018a taste for fine art because they have been exposed to and trained to appreciate it since a very early age, while working-class individuals have generally not had access to \u2018high art\u2019 and thus have not cultivated the \u2018habitus\u2019\u00a0<\/em>appropriate to fine art [understanding].\u2019 The paper will also discuss how aspects of the maker movement, including the use of desktop tools, sharing and collaboration and the use of common design standards to facilitate fast iteration can be beneficially assimilated into a seemingly dissimilar heritage retail culture and public and what the societal benefits of this may be.<\/p>\n

Literature Review<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Souvenirs as meaningful \u2018things\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Bjorgvinsson, Ehn and Hillgren (2010: 41), describe a \u2018thing\u2019 as something that \u2018challenges when entering the public sphere and the field of innovation research. A major challenge has to do with what is being designed \u2013 a \u2018thing\u2019 (object or service) or a \u2018Thing\u2019 (socio-material assembly that deals with \u2018matters of concern\u2019). In this study, the researchers have treated the public interaction with the digitally made souvenir objects and their relationship with the deconstructed use of the heritage space as meaningful.<\/p>\n

Souvenirs and the \u2018gift shop\u2019 are often overlooked as having any significance in how the public interact with their heritage environment. However, according to Norman (2004: 48), for example, ‘we become attached to things if they have a significant personal association. If they bring to mind pleasant, comforting moments. Perhaps more significant, however, is our attachment to places. Our attachment is really not to the thing, it is the relationship to the meanings and feelings the thing represents.’ In this way, the souvenir may, in some cases, eclipse the actual exhibit in the way that it is remembered or personally, authentically engaged with. Through digitally made souvenirs, this study moves the institutionalised heritage experience out of the prescribed space, into the gift shop then into a domestic environment and considers the implications of this.<\/p>\n

Gordon\u2019s research (2004: 135) claimed that, \u2018the universality of the souvenir can be understood in light of its underlying role or function. As an actual object, it concretizes or makes tangible what was otherwise only an intangible state. Its physical presence helps locate, define and freeze in time a fleeting, transitory experience and bring back into ordinary experience something of the quality of an extraordinary experience.’ Souvenirs have the ability to be \u2018tangible, magical, sentimental, cherished objects of memorable experience, intangible reminders and golden memories\u2019 (McKercher and du Cros, 2002: 80). By providing a material point of reference for a specific memory, souvenirs create, recreate and mediate a multi-sense tourist experience (Morgan and Pritchard, 2005) and are a means of mediating or transferring messages from one reality to another (Collins-Kreiner and Zins, 2011: 19).<\/p>\n

Digitally making collaborative \u2018authentic\u2019 souvenirs<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In this project, albeit a short pilot study where the publics\u2019 interaction with the actual 3D printer and designing process was relatively limited, aspects of the tourist and design co-creation processes were applied and the feedback was appraised. According to Binkhorst and Dekker (2009: 320) \u2018modern consumers want context related, authentic experience concepts and seek a balance between control by the experience stager and self determined activity with its spontaneity, freedom and self-expression.\u2019 Sanders and Stappers (2008: 6) define co-creation as \u2018the creativity of designers and people not trained in design working together in the design development process\u2019. The ability of the visitor to simply interact with the making process of 3D printing, through colour choices, scales and inclusion of inscription, in addition to the occasional flaws and imperfections in the printing process, can lead to the additional experience of serendipity, often experienced by skilled makers.<\/p>\n

The in-situ 3D printing experience that the research team facilitated for the heritage public seemed to elevate their souvenirs from being throwaway plastic unicorns into co-created experiential objects, embedded with \u2018authenticity\u2019. Traditional ‘craft’ produces souvenir objects that are often perceived as more ‘authentic’ by visitors. (Littrell, Anderson and Brown, 1993) Elements of authenticity are thought to be implicit in craft production processes, materials, workmanship, exclusivity and authorship of the souvenir objects. (Paraskevaidis and Andriotis, 2015) This has been a long held belief, reflected in Redgrave’s report of the Great Exhibition in 1851 which argued, ‘wherever ornament is wholly effected by machinery, it is certainly the most degraded in style and execution; and the best workmanship and the best taste are to be found in those manufactures and fabrics wherein the handicraft is entirely or partially the means of producing the ornament’ (Auerbach, 1999: 136). Handicraft and human touch can therefore equate to extended engagement with the object and a more intimate experience of ownership (Kettley, 2010).<\/p>\n

The processes, outputs and experience of 3D printing technologies seem to be in contrast to this. Digital making, particularly 3D printing, engage the maker in a number of ways that differ from ‘pure’ handcraft or that which has been uniformly ‘manufactured’ by machine (Rotman, 2012). Pye (1968: 4) defines ‘the workmanship of risk’ as ‘workmanship using any kind of technique or apparatus, in which the quality of the result is not predetermined’. The ‘workmanship of certainty’ is that ‘always to be found in quantity production. The quality of the result is always predetermined before a single saleable thing is made.’ It could be argued that 3D printing combines the best attributes of risk and certainty. Through the particular traits of 3D printed making in a shared, informal setting, the public applies \u2018communicative self steering\u2019 (Cornelius, 1988) and personal value to their relationship with the heritage environment and the exhibit.<\/p>\n

Maker spaces and the concept of \u2018leisure\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

This project brought aspects of an open, accommodating maker space to the institutionalised setting of the commercial heritage environment. However, the tourist public had entered the heritage environment with a mind to it being a \u2018leisure\u2019 activity, where any engagement or learning would be informal.<\/p>\n

Binkhorst (2009: 320) stated that \u2018during free time people express their quest for ever more unique experiences reflecting their own personal stories.\u2019 \u2018There is also a ‘shift towards active rather than passive forms of consumption and an emphasis on living or intangible culture rather than static, tangible cultural heritage in tourism. (Gonzalez, 2008) The fundamental nature of creative tourism seems to lie in activities and experiences related to self realisation and self expression whereby tourists become co-performers and co-creators as they develop their creative skills’ (Richards, 2011: 1237). In creative tourist experiences, the host and the tourist mediate authenticity in situ, each playing a role as the originator of the experience. Escapist experiences involve a greater immersion than entertainment or educational experiences. (Tung and Ritchie, 2011) According to Gretzel and Jamal (2007: 7-8) ‘play, aesthetics and empathy strongly characterise new creative experiences. Further, stories woven around experiences support meaning creation, which is central to creative experiences\u2019.<\/p>\n

Peppler and Bender (2013) state that the maker movement and maker spaces are a diverse movement united by a \u2018shared commitment to open exploration, intrin\u00adsic interest and creative ideas.\u2019 Objects made in maker spaces can be, therefore, often social activities, and the learning that takes place is unstructured and has a particular relationship to leisure. (Cunningham, 2017) Maker spaces are related to production, leisure, entrepreneurship and \u2018creative commons\u2019 but the attitude within the spaces does not appear to be motivated by profit. Maker spaces connect the \u2018do-it-yourself\u2019 maker movement, the creative economy and the social reproductive work that makes the spaces feel alternative, \u2018anti-establishment\u2019 and \u2018radicalised\u2019 (Cunningham, 2017: 14). The maker space creates incentives for collective work. Evaluations of the concepts around \u2018leisure\u2019 are therefore important as maker spaces are supposed to be a \u2018fun\u2019 environment for do-it-yourself activities as a form of escape from everyday work. This, in many ways, aligns the maker space to the communal, \u2018free time\u2019 experience of holidays, cultural events and the type of \u2018creative tourism\u2019 intended through this study.<\/p>\n

In this study, the heritage public were given a trial of the enabling, active role that being a digital maker allows, in a setting where they were sociable, informal leisure consumers rather than structured, institutionalised learners. Extensive follow on research as to the affect of this experiment may have had on the publics\u2019 engagement with the heritage environment was not possible in this project. However, the collected observations seemed to point to changes in the heritage publics\u2019 attitudes to their personal empowerment. Firstly, this may have been attributed to their relationship with the \u2018experienced stagers\u2019 of the 3D printing event. Secondly, the public felt that they may have a more creative self expression and a democratic \u2018say\u2019 in the way that the exhibits and environments were seen, mediated and \u2018owned\u2019 and that this might simply be reflected in a \u2018meaningful\u2019 heritage souvenir.<\/p>\n

The \u2018pop up\u2019 retail ethos and the maker movement<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In this study, the researchers attempted to set up a \u2018pop up\u2019 temporary, simple, maker and retail space, drawing upon aspects of both the maker movement\u2019s democratic, enabling environment and principles of \u2018experiential\u2019 retail and concepts of emotional attachment to the souvenir. Through this it was found that many of the traits of the relatively new phenomenon of pop up events and spaces align themselves to the maker culture well and are worthy of further exploration.<\/p>\n

Toffler (1981) coined the terms \u2018prosumer\u2019 and \u2018prosumption\u2019 to describe how the transition from the Industrial Age Society (second wave), to the Information Age society (third wave) was giving rise to processes that were blurring the boundaries between producers and consumers. Researchers have used other terms such as co-creation, co-production and collaborative consumption to describe situations where consumers collaborate with companies or with other consumers to produce things of value (Gayson and Humphrys, 2008). Fox (2014: 18) commented that ‘third wave DIY draws upon the read\/write functionality of the internet, and digitally driven design\/manufacture to enable ordinary people to invent, design, make and\/or sell goods they think of themselves’. Ritzer and Jurgenson (2010: 13) point out that ‘[economic development’s] early years were dominated by production, especially in the factory. Recently, the focus shifted to consumption (with the shopping mall coming to rival, or even supplant, the factory as the centre of the economy)’. Pine and Gilmore (1999), Richards (2001), and Postrel (2003) all assert that there is a change in consumer behaviour where many consumers do not want to simply buy goods and services, they also look for engaging experiences. According to Gordon (2004), to be successful, pop up retail must create an environment that is highly authentic and experiential, focuses on promoting new product or brand attributes and enables a more face-to-face dialogue with \u2018brand representatives\u2019. Consumers want more choice, personalisation, and participation in the actual retail experience. This engaged consumer also wants products, communication, entertainment, and marketing ploys that appeal to their senses, emotions, and stimulate their thinking. They want the process of purchasing to be fun. (Karolefski, 2003). These \u2018fun\u2019 interactions can include \u2018pop-up retail,\u2019 which involves \u2018sensation-rich and unique experiences that appeal to the growing desire for innovativeness and open-mindedness towards diverse, unique experiences, measured by consumer innovativeness\u2019 (Engelland et al., 2001; Midgely and Dowling, 1978; Steenkamp et al., 1999).<\/p>\n

With pop up retail, selling products is often coupled with creating theatrical experiences where \u2018spectacle comes first\u2019 (Trendwatching, 2003). It can appear to offer something that is \u2018limited, discovery-driven and of the moment\u2019. (Marchinaik and Budnarowska, 2014) \u2018Pop up stores tap into the current zeitgeist, evidenced through flashmobs where retail brands are keen to align themselves with aspects of youth culture.\u2019 (Baker 2008). Pop up offers \u2018massclusivity\u2019 (Trendwatching 2003), wherein exclusive no longer means being expensive.<\/p>\n

Collins (2004) says that \u2018pop up marketing through pop up retail benefits the customer offers excitement from the novel experience, offers customers exclusive products or experiences, offers discovery or a surprise factor, offers a good way for consumers to learn about and test products, provides desired free samples and services to consumers, helps consumers spend money wisely, engages the consumer on a personal level, and provides entertainment desired by the consumer\u2019.<\/p>\n

While buying and selling seem at odds with the ethos of the maker movement, pop up appears to mirror the nonconformist, collective, emotionally authentic attributes of the maker movement, whether this is fortuitous or a cynical, commercial strategy. (Niehm et al, 2015) The temporary, highly personal nature of the event, where the public could interact with digital craft and speak directly to the \u2018experienced makers\u2019, in an unusual environment, added to the publics\u2019 experience, memory and value of their heritage visit, reflected in the team\u2019s observations and potentially challenging the established traditions of the heritage organisation.<\/p>\n

Research Design<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The initial study took place in collaboration with Historic Scotland, in Stirling Castle in Scotland, producing 3D printed souvenirs of their visit to the Castle in July and August 2014. A research protocol was agreed with Historic Scotland regarding the collection of data and the use of photography within the Castle, which also adhered to Edinburgh Napier University\u2019s Research Integrity procedures. The researchers excluded visitors under the age of eighteen from the interviews and only took a few photos, as there were many families with young children visiting on the days of data collection. The researchers were aware of the research integrity issues surrounding photography of children in public spaces and had adapted their research design and methods accordingly prior to the data collection process. All the interviewees signed a consent form, which detailed the purpose of the project and the use of the information they provided. The souvenirs were produced in a variety of materials and scales and were formed on an Ultimaker 2 portable 3D printer that was set up within the castle next to one of the halls that formed part of a tour.<\/p>\n

The researchers invited visitors to take part and then offered them a 3D printed item at the end of the short survey (a unicorn to reflect the Castle\u2019s branding). The survey took place in situ to demonstrate the technology and processes involved with 3D printing and to engage the public and staff with the design process of manufacturing a souvenir from start to finish using these technologies.<\/p>\n

Closed answer questions were produced which were then slightly modified to reflect feedback from the visitors after the initial pilot study. The questions were informed by the literature review and sought to identify the respondents\u2019 previous knowledge and exposure to 3D printers; their impressions of the printed souvenirs, and their willingness to pay and interest in souvenir personalisation. At the time of the study, and the nature of the collaboration with Historic Scotland and their gift shop, the questions in the survey reflected this, rather than a fuller exploration of the peer process or how the publics\u2019 perception of the prescribed, conventional characteristics of the heritage environment were challenged. Questions asked in the survey included:<\/p>\n