This PhD submission explores the value of digital reconstruction practice to the theatre historian in general, but in particular the historian concerned with exploring visual histories offered by the areas of theatre design and architecture. It will articulate differences between the expectations and reality of digital reconstruction as illustration (both fixed and interactive), and suggest caveats and opportunities offered by digital (and virtual) outputs as a mode of communication. While the thesis will explore practice and critical commentary related to reconstruction as illustration, it will focus in more detail on the model as practice as research (PaR). The practice under consideration is the practice of the visual researcher and, the written element of this thesis is supported by a web based archive of digital reconstruction practice.  

This web site represents the archive of practice. The written commentary addresses issues which are central to the concerns of the discipline (issues of accurately capturing and communicating the choices of the researcher) but also moves beyond these concerns to suggest that a more effective consideration of these issues might be facilitated by exploring different approaches to framing the perceived problems. To that end, this discussion takes the form of an exploration of the impact of various forces on both procedural (visual researcher) and objective (end user) engagement with computer reconstruction. These forces (explored in terms of dominant and alternative conceptual frameworks) include visual perception, the role of metaphor in basic conceptual functioning, assumptions about the nature of communication, the nature of tacit knowing and the unique perspective offered by acts of making.

The intention is to explore the methodological value of reconstructive practice in the process of the historian and identify possibilities for communicating the tacit knowledge generated by these approaches in ways which move beyond the simple presentation of visualised outputs as illustration.