African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter Volume 13 Article 1 Issue 3September 2010 9-1-2010 Virtual Archaeology and Digital Storytelling: A Report from Rosewood, Florida Edward González-Tennant Monmouth University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at:https://scholarworks.umass.edu/adan Recommended Citation González-Tennant, Edward (2010) "Virtual Archaeology and Digital Storytelling: A Report from Rosewood, Florida,"African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter: Vol. 13 : Iss. 3 , Article 1. Available at:https://scholarworks.umass.edu/adan/vol13/iss3/1 This Articles, Essays, and Reports is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. González-Tennant: Virtual Archaeology and Digital Storytelling: A Report from Rosew Omer Cooper J (1971) September 2010 Newsletter Virtual Archaeology and Digital Storytelling: A Report from Rosewood, Florida By Edward González-Tennant Abstract The utilization of virtual worlds as a research and collaborative practice is rapidly growing in archaeology, although largely restricted to prehistoric and monumental sites. This article outlines the application of virtual technologies to the historic site of Rosewood, Florida. In addition to reviewing a wide range of creation and delivery methods for virtual content, the author discusses the ability of digital storytelling to produce multi-vocal representations of archaeological contexts. While the central goal focuses on elaborating the current possibilities of virtual archaeology, a secondary current invites readers to conceptualize the transformative potential of new media in regards to historical archaeology. As new media practice, the combination of virtual archaeology and digital storytelling offers a new toolkit for engaged scholarship. This innovative approach stimulates a democratized practice that is not restricted to classic forms of mass standardization routinely found in traditional forms of interpretation and dissemination. Introduction The use of virtual world environments by archaeologists continues to grow. Presently, this encompasses literally hundreds of projects around the world and plans for a multimedia journal on the subject are in the works (Bawaya 2010). The term “virtual archaeology” entered the archaeological vernacular twenty years ago, referring to the use of 3D models to represent archaeological contexts (Reilly 1990). Common usage during the 1990s centered on visualizing sites and producing static two-dimensional images for publication and short videos. Since the development of Web 2.0 and the ability to deliver interactive content, the creation of virtual world environments allowing for group interaction is defining the widening field of virtual archaeology. Perhaps the best known example of the potential for delivering archaeological 1 Published by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst, 2010 1 African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter, Vol. 13 [2010], Iss. 3, Art. 1 content via the internet in an immersive and interactive format is the virtual reconstruction of archaeological work at Çatalhöyük in the popular online virtual environment Second Life (Morgan 2009). While virtual archaeology has come into its own as of late, the application of such technologies to the archaeology of the contemporary past remains elusive. Again, a recent term in the archaeological vernacular (Buchli and Lucas 2001), it represents a “dynamic new field which engages critically with what it means to be ‘us’, with the politics of late-modernity, and with the nature, shape and relevance of archaeology as a contemporary research practice” (Harrison and Schofield 2009:186). Gonzalez-Ruibal (2008) has called for this type of work in regards to the sites destroyed/erased by supermodernity, and opens his article with a brief discussion of Marc Auge’s application of the term in regards to the late twentieth century’s revolution of speed, new modes of communication, and new spatial relations of non-places where no one dwells but many of us pass through. One of Gonzalez-Ruibal’s main themes examines possible alternatives to narration in terms of presenting the past. Briefly, he argues that narration and storytelling remain the dominant forms of dissemination among academics in regards to their research, and calls on archaeology to explore alternative forms of dissemination. This includes the use of technologies like interactive computer mapping as well as traditional ones like illustrations and paper maps. While Gonzalez-Ruibal’s project focuses on negative spaces where terrible things happened (and in many instances continue to), he specifically states that his is not a crippling pessimism, it is a call to action. I position my work with the Virtual Rosewood Research Project (http://www.virtualrosewood.com) at the confluence of these trends, particularly as they might apply to the archaeology of the African Diaspora. In order to do this, I explore a variety of methods to both create and deliver virtual content. This is a conscious strategy designed to maximize access to the data and results for other researchers and the broader public. As an engaged project (Gonzalez-Tennant, in press), this approach balances the requests of descendants with the demands of academic consistency. The purpose of this article is to share my experiences with this project over the past several years, and focus on the virtual methods and delivery options currently available to historical archaeologists interested in doing this type of 2 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/adan/vol13/iss3/1 2 González-Tennant: Virtual Archaeology and Digital Storytelling: A Report from Rosew work. The next section presents a brief overview of the Virtual Rosewood Research Project. This includes a description of the theories, data, and questions I am asking. Then, I introduce the three separate virtual world environments under development. These are (1) a now traditional approach in virtual archaeology using expensive and time-intensive methods derived from the entertainment industry, (2) an inexpensive and quickly learnable method using Google SketchUp, and (3) the creation of an interactive virtual museum in Second Life. Finally, I discuss three different ways of delivering the content including images and digital storytelling, interactive 3D worlds via the internet, and an augmented reality application to deliver 3D heritage information in the physical world. This article is not a how-to, nuts-and-bolts presentation of the methods, but rather an overview drawing on specific examples from this ongoing project as a way to introduce the reader to the exciting variety of possibilities currently available. Overview of the Virtual Rosewood Research Project I began researching the tragic history of Rosewood, Florida in the spring of 2005 as a graduate student with James Davidson at the University of Florida. Initially, we worried that previous examples of local hostility towards remembering the site and its history would hinder traditional archeological research, and decided to draw on methods from historical geographic information systems and virtual archaeology to document and analyze the site (Davidson and Gonzalez-Tennant 2008). Today, we realize that many local residents, all of whom are white, are open to historical archaeology, only to be faced with new problems of poor site preservation, persistent looting, and the ephemeral nature of the structures themselves. Therefore, even as we are increasing our work with local communities, the need to explore additional methodological possibilities remains paramount. A Brief Introduction to the Rosewood Race Riot of 1923 Rosewood was settled nine miles from the Gulf of Mexico in northern Florida (Figure 1) during the mid-nineteenth century by a diverse group of people, and experienced rapid economic growth following the Civil War. By the early twentieth century the town’s economy began to slow and demographically had become a majority black town. These factors were possibly in reaction to the economic rise of neighboring Sumner following the opening of a large sawmill 3 Published by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst, 2010 3 African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter, Vol. 13 [2010], Iss. 3, Art. 1 there in 1914 or so. Sumner became a company town with a mix of black and white workers. Then, on New Year’s Day 1923, a white woman in Sumner fabricated a black assailant to hide her extramarital affair with a white man. A white mob quickly formed, headed for Rosewood and encountered the home of Sam Carter, a long-time black resident of Rosewood. At first, they interrogated him by hanging him from a tree by the neck, then when it seemed the mob might release him an unidentified man leveled his gun at Carter’s face, and New Year’s Day ended with the sound of a shotgun blast. Figure 1. Location of Rosewood, Florida (all images by the author unless indicated otherwise). At first, it seemed that the violence might end with Carter’s lynching. However, a little over a day later, whites in Sumner heard that the (fabricated) black assailant had returned to Rosewood with a local resident, Sylvester Carrier. Carrier’s distrust of whites was well-known and before the night was out, at least two whites lay dead on his doorstep after attempting to set fire to his family’s home. Rumor and hatred spread quickly through rural Florida, eventually reaching the Klu Klux Klan in Gainesville, only forty miles away. Residents of Rosewood knew the response for killing whites would be swift and violent, black men armed themselves and 4 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/adan/vol13/iss3/1 4 González-Tennant: Virtual Archaeology and Digital Storytelling: A Report from Rosew headed into the woods, women and children hid with one of Rosewood’s only white residents, John Wright, to wait out the violence. However, by the sixth of January three other blacks had been brutally murdered and the white mob, now numbering in the hundreds, began the systematic burning of Rosewood. During this time a train was brought through town at four in the morning to pick up women and children, who had moved to the swamps and spent the previous night or two hiding after John Wright was unable to guarantee their safety. The train took dozens of families to towns like Otter Creek, Archer, and Gainesville’s black district where descendants live to this day. Residents of Rosewood, those who survived long enough, would have to wait more than seven decades to receive any justice. While a grand jury convened in January 1923, no convictions were made and the jury’s records have been lost. Rosewood lingered at the edges of collective memory for decades. Then, in a 1994 landmark decision, the State of Florida decided to pay compensation to survivors and descendants. The story of Rosewood speaks to a range of larger issues and has much to offer concerning questions about extralegal violence, communal trauma, and America’s (un)willingness to discuss the darker aspects of our collective past. As a way to communicate this tragic history, and the lessons it holds for modern America, the Virtual Rosewood Research Project is exploring a variety of methods for analyzing, reconstructing, and disseminating information about this historic community. First Steps for Reconstructing Rosewood The handful of families currently living in the area where Rosewood once existed have little or no personal attachment to the history and events of 1923. Most have moved into the area in the past couple of decades, and as such know little about Rosewood’s spatial layout. The events of 1923 remain at the very edges of living memory and survivors have difficulty remembering the spatial organization of a town they last saw as small children nearly ninety years ago. Reconstructing a virtual version of Rosewood requires, at the very least, a basic spatial template locating structures on the landscape. To accomplish this, I begin with geographic information systems (GIS), property deeds, census records, and historic aerial photographs. This methodology involves the following steps; (1) identify the appropriate historic property records, (2) translate the boundary information in the document into a GIS file, 5 Published by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst, 2010 5 African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter, Vol. 13 [2010], Iss. 3, Art. 1 (3) identify the owner in the census, (4) add census data to the GIS record, and (5) overlay this information on other forms of data including aerial photographs from the 1940s to help visualize the exact locations of structures. In regards to Rosewood, these steps are repeated hundreds of times for a period beginning in the 1860s and continuing until the 1930s, providing a basic template for the virtual reconstruction. Three Methods for Creating Virtual Rosewood This section describes the three different methodologies being drawn upon to create the virtual world environment of Rosewood. It also highlights how I decide the appearance of structures, since only one confirmed building from before 1923 still exists, and no photographic evidence exists from the town otherwise. Traditional Methods of Virtual Reality Virtual reality was developed in the 1960s as part of Ivan Sutherland’s work with head mounted displays and flight simulators (Lenoir 2000:292-295). The directions Sutherland pointed to during this time remain consistent with modern computer generated imagery (CGI). Sutherland first called for visual realism; where the images on a computer screen or head mounted display became so lifelike, or photorealistic, that they were indistinguishable from an image from the physical world. The second direction involved a new phrase he coined, ‘virtual worlds’, to describe “systems in which users are immersed in scenes created completely by computer graphics” (Lenoir 2000:295). Finally, Sutherland postulated the creation of an augmented or mixed reality where virtual objects could interact with the physical world and vice versa, an aspiration only recently realized in the development of augmented reality, increasingly popular as an marketing strategy (for an example, see Esquire’s augmented reality issue with Robert Downey Jr. at http://www.esquire.com/the-side/augmented-reality). Sutherland’s first direction has become a staple of the entertainment industry, and CGI is now routinely employed by movie studios in Hollywood and around the world (e.g., George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic, Steve Jackson’s Weta Digital in New Zealand). Currently, a handful of programs dominate the entertainment industry in terms of creating 3D content. These include 3DS Max, Maya, and Vue among others. These are expensive 6 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/adan/vol13/iss3/1 6 González-Tennant: Virtual Archaeology and Digital Storytelling: A Report from Rosew software packages with full licenses typically costing thousands of dollars US. They’re also complex programs with steep learning curves. In the past, the steep cost and lack of training resources limited the exploration of these packages to specialty programs and concentrations in anthropology/archaeology departments in the US and Europe (particularly England and Italy). Fortunately, the company which owns 3DS Max, 3DS Max Design, Maya, AutoCAD, and others recently began offering free, one-year education licenses to all of their programs. Educators and students can download and activate these programs by visiting http://students.autodesk.com. Additionally, in order to encourage more adoptions of its software and train the next generation of CGI practitioners, a large library of training resources are now available at this site as well. I am using 3DS Max Design 2011 to create a virtual world environment version of Rosewood. There are numerous reasons for choosing this program. First, it is specifically designed for architectural visualizations of structures in their environments. Also, as an industry standard, there exists a sizable support community on the internet to consult. Finally, there are numerous pre-constructed assets on sites like http://www.turbosquid.com that I can incorporate into a 3D model for relatively little money. The general production pipeline for producing a 3DS Max Design version of Rosewood begins with modeling individual structures. Since only one confirmed structure from before the 1923 race riot exists in Rosewood, other structures being modeled are based on similar structures from the area dating to the same period. The size and type of structures modeled for Virtual Rosewood are based on information from the property documents, census records, and accounts passed down between survivors and descendants. Some of the property deeds include basic descriptions of structures. When this is not the case, the census records provide a basic idea of the numbers of people living in a structure, often indicative of a large household, small family, boarding house, and so forth. In addition, the size and construction of public buildings like stores, churches, schools, and masonic lodges were fairly standard for the area at the time and photographic evidence of similar structures (Figure 2) from the this time period in nearby locations are being drawn upon as templates. An additional benefit of using 3DS Max Design is its ability to create dimensionally accurate models. For example, one of the house forms in Virtual Rosewood is based on a 7 Published by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst, 2010 7 African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter, Vol. 13 [2010], Iss. 3, Art. 1 farmhouse to the northeast built in the 1880s located at the Dudley Farm Historic Park. Measured drawings of this structure were created in the early 1990s and provide precise measurements for re-creating the building virtually. Once the modeling is created, the next and in many ways most crucial step involves texturing the model. Texturing, as the name suggests, Figure 2. Elzey Methodist Church, built in 1860s ten miles from Rosewood (University of Florida Special Collections). refers to the placement of colors, patterns, and/or images on the 3D model. It involves a flat image pasted onto the 3D surface of a virtual model, similar to rubber-sheeting an aerial image to a surface model in 3D GIS (Figure 3). Texturing a model can be as simple as dragging images onto a surface, or involve hours of finding the right image and editing these together in an image manipulation program like Adobe Photoshop. For the 3DS Max Design version of Virtual Rosewood, the more complicated and more visually appealing route of editing images in Photoshop is being used to improve the overall appearance of the virtual world environment. Finally, a rendering setup and engine is selected to increase the realism of the 3D model. Rendering refers to the final production of an image or video using the textured 3D model. The process involves the computer calculating how light would interact with the 3D model as though it were a physical shape. This produces the shadows and adds an increased sense of realism to 8 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/adan/vol13/iss3/1 8 González-Tennant: Virtual Archaeology and Digital Storytelling: A Report from Rosew the model. The sources of light in the virtual world include global light sources like the sun and/or local lights such as a lamp or fire. Figure 4 shows the HABS/HAER style drawing Figure 3. Rubbersheeting of Aerial Image on 3D Terrain Surface in GIS Figure 4. HABS Drawing, Non-Textured Model, Texture Map, Near Complete Model. 9 Published by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst, 2010 9