[Patina] Re: next meeting
Earl G.P.
graeme.earl at soton.ac.uk
Tue Feb 8 20:26:57 GMT 2011
Hi Luc,
Comments below:
-----Original Message-----
From: patina-bounces at ecs.soton.ac.uk [mailto:patina-bounces at ecs.soton.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Luc Moreau
Sent: 08 February 2011 17:12
To: patina at ecs.soton.ac.uk
Subject: [Patina] Re: next meeting
Graeme,
Just a few comments following your email and our meeting last week
- The lab work with the stones that we saw last week is not research per se.
It is preparation for research. It is purely mechanical. We could do
some tracking here, but the benefit is dubious, and from a PATINA
viewpoint, not much research to undertake.
- Research seems to start when people use microscope, obtain data,
and then build interpretations. We have not seen this. That would
be something interesting to investigate ... especially, if interpretations
are the kind of knowledge we want to exchange between researchers.
>> As you say, using the machines is indeed purely mechanical. Looking at the samples is largely mechanical but having spoken to Prof Peacock today he is aware of work in the use of automated segmentation of inclusions etc. but that it is his belief that there remains a considerable need to undertake additional manual analysis. This is based on experience and so yes I would count it as a research. We could certainly concentrate on this aspect but we would need to consider what augmentation of the experience we would add.
- I am opposed to a field deployment at this stage. The reason why we
went for the archeology lab is that it was close enough to a library-like
environment.
>> I agree. I wasn;t proposing one.
- At the risk of being controversial, I would want to question the "research activity"
that is in the field. Some of it seems purely mechanical, such as excavating artifacts
from the ground. In the field, where do we have real decision points, that require knowledge
of archeology, and would benefit of patina assistance to support the research oriented
decision making process.
>> Excavation is manual in terms of digging the holes. It is however a process that requires multisensory activity and is determined by experience. Recognition of artefacts and indeed of different structures in the soil is largely based on expertise and is rather hard to do. The decision points will be continuous - whenever the trowel is used in fact. You also have to make continuous value judgements. If you find a pebble in the pit what do you do? Is it important because it is not local to the area, has it been transformed through processes that might be anthropogenic, is it aligned in a particular way, is it in association with other artefacts in a way also seen at another site? Or is it just a pebble?
- Your suggested haptic device seems good to render information.
However, can it render research processes?
>> I would like for us to consider the haptic at some stage. In terms of the processes I was thinking that the haptic can render agglomerations of values e.g. averages, maxima, minima in addition to a replication. So, this might be a means to encounter the processes involved in terms of their wider context. For a single object it is harder to define but I wonder whether we might choose to represent through haptic means other variables such as similarity to another object, the fact that we have previously worked on it in another context, etc. etc.
Cheers,
G
Just food for thought before the meeting,
Cheers,
Luc
On 02/07/2011 06:37 PM, Earl G.P. wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I am teaching all afternoon Thursday and on Friday morning. I suggest that you all meet and then I catch up via Angeliki or Tom afterwards. I have been deep in thought since we met and am trying to articulate my thoughts at present. I felt like we reached a particular low after the visit to archaeology, and in particular Enrico made me appreciate the need for clarity. However, I have spent the whole time since then thinking about what we have to gain from the archaeology scenario and I do keep coming back to the physical nature of archaeological research. Whilst some components of archaeological analysis are indeed mechanical, for example the identification of species, others involve a whole combination of analytical and interpretative tasks and end up with an assessment that is characterised by 'greyness' i.e. uncertainty.
>
> The fieldwork scenario is I think still perfectly suited to a deployment focussed on collaboration. Having spoken to some other colleagues I do think Tom needs to spend time in another unit as well as Wessex and we think Cambridge would be very good. Wessex is well known for being compartmentalised (and as a consequence very efficient) in its workflows but other places do have more of an integrated approach. One of the directors at Cambridge is particularly renowned for encouraging a more egalitarian spirit on site with the explicit reasoning that this improves the quality of the archaeology undertaken. So, to summarise I think there is lots of potential in the area of collaboration that Tom and I have concentrated on so far. The issue of dealing with uncertainty is also important here, and the opportunity to replay research activities on a site. Portus will provide a good potential focus for this.
>
> Personally I have had considerable doubts since last week about the lab deployment however. Again having spoken to a number of colleagues we believe that whilst making staff in the field aware of lab activity and results could be very valuable in many cases the lab activity happens when the excavation is completed - a deliberate disarticulation of processes designed to ensure that the stratigraphy, drawing etc. is defined first. However, there are still times when post-ex might be happening together with the excavation so it is a valid approach. What I am less convinced by is the benefit to the person working in the lab of being aware of what others in the lab are doing. The idea of collaboration here is not necessarily bidirectional. However, there may well be value in recording repeated processes as a means for enhancing practice in the lab i.e. walking in the footsteps of yourself, in addition to your predecessors. Whilst an individual object may not have 'patina' in th!
is sense there will be a build up of 'patina' on classes of object and classes of information about those objects.
>
> For example, as I recorded the specific femoral adaptations for a project when I was a student (the process that I discussed when we visited the human osteology lab) I developed a growing understanding that would then be brought to bear on any future work. It would have been very helpful to retrieve information about what I had worked on before. For example, if we ignore the visual, an entirely haptic feedback of the roughness of the trochanteric spicules I recorded on the human femurs could deliver a relative sense of roughness to that of the object I was currently working on. Were I to design an intervention on this basis I would want to have a device that provided a sense of roughness to my finger that corresponded to some dataset e.g. a scan or even a greyscale photograph of the bone morphology. I could then switch between the device and the real object to develop a purely haptic comparison. The data could also be transformed to represent an average rather than a speci!
fic example. Using a z-buffer camera I could very simply create new datasets as I worked on new bones. The beauty of the haptic basis is that it fits perfectly with physical practice, and also that it is not simply replicating a real interaction but is using touch to interact with patina - the breadth of data and potentially interpretations of a group of objects.
>
> This may be completely off track but let me know what you think.
>
> G
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: patina-bounces at ecs.soton.ac.uk [mailto:patina-bounces at ecs.soton.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Chrysanthi A.
> Sent: 07 February 2011 16:11
> To: Southampton-specific mailing list for PATINA project
> Subject: [Patina] Re: next meeting
>
> Same as Mike!
> Cheers,
> Angeliki
>
> Angeliki Chrysanthi
> PhD candidate
> Archaeological Computing Research Group University of Southampton
> Avenue Campus
> SO17 1BF
> ________________________________________
> From: patina-bounces at ecs.soton.ac.uk [patina-bounces at ecs.soton.ac.uk]
> On Behalf Of Michael Jewell [mjewell at gmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, February 07, 2011 2:27 PM
> To: Southampton-specific mailing list for PATINA project
> Subject: [Patina] Re: next meeting
>
> Hi!
>
> Both Thurs and Fri are fine with me!
>
> Cheers,
> Mike
>
> On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 9:29 AM, Frankland T.<tf4e10 at soton.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'd prefer Thursday after 3pm as well if possible.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Tom.
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On 7 Feb 2011, at 08:59, "Enrico Costanza"<ec at ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On 07/02/2011 08:48, Luc Moreau wrote:
>>>
>>>> The first draft of our intervention is due in a week's time ...
>>>> so it would be good to meet again.
>>>>
>>>> What about:
>>>> - Thursday 2.30pm onwards
>>>> - Friday morning
>>>>
>>>> Enrico told me he preferred Thursday.
>>>>
>>> I still do, but after 3pm.
>>>
>>> Friday is also possible (eve though not preferred).
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Enrico
>>>
>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Luc
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Dr Enrico Costanza
>>> Lecturer, Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia Group School of
>>> Electronics and Computer Science University of Southampton, UK, SO17
>>> 1BJ
>>>
>>> http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/ec
>>> http://d-touch.org
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Patina mailing list
>>> Patina at ecs.soton.ac.uk
>>> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/patina
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Patina mailing list
>> Patina at ecs.soton.ac.uk
>> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/patina
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Dr Michael O. Jewell
> ECS, University of Southampton
> _______________________________________________
> Patina mailing list
> Patina at ecs.soton.ac.uk
> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/patina
>
> _______________________________________________
> Patina mailing list
> Patina at ecs.soton.ac.uk
> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/patina
>
> _______________________________________________
> Patina mailing list
> Patina at ecs.soton.ac.uk
> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/patina
>
--
Professor Luc Moreau
Electronics and Computer Science tel: +44 23 8059 4487
University of Southampton fax: +44 23 8059 2865
Southampton SO17 1BJ email: l.moreau at ecs.soton.ac.uk
United Kingdom http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~lavm
_______________________________________________
Patina mailing list
Patina at ecs.soton.ac.uk
http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/patina
More information about the Patina
mailing list