Dr James Taylor and myself will be hosting a follow-up to our first digiTAG (digital Theoretical Archaeology Group) event held in Oslo in the springtime. Sponsored by both TAG and the CAA (Computing Applications in Archaeology), digiTAG II will take place at the TAG UK conference in Southampton, 19-21 December, 2016.
Our aim through the digiTAG series is to deepen our critical engagements w digital media and digital methods in archaeology and heritage.
digiTAG II seeks to focus our thinking specifically on digital tools as they are enrolled in creating stories about the past. To this end, we are looking for contributors to talk about, experiment with, involve or otherwise immerse us in their archaeological/heritage storytelling work.
Such storytelling work may entail innovating with: • lab or excavation reports
• recording sheets
• maps, plans, section views, sketches, illustrations, and other forms of on-site visual recording
• collections and databases
• data stories or data ethnographies
• digital data capture (survey, photogrammetry, laser scanning, remote sensing, etc.)
• artefact or museums catalogues
• digital media forms (VR, AR, videogames, webpages, apps, etc.)
• books or manuscripts
• articles, zines, comics, news reports, art pieces
• audioguides, podcasts, music or sound installations
• maps, trails, panels, labels, guidebooks, brochures, and other forms of interpretation & interpretative infrastructure
• touch maps, handling materials/collections, tactile writing systems, 3d prints, models & more!
We welcome both traditional conference papers, as well as more experimental forms of (analogue or digital) argumentation, narrativising and delivery of your digiTAG II presentation. Please submit your abstracts (up to 250 words) to
[log in to unmask] by 15 November.
We hope to hear from you & don’t hesitate to contact us with questions. The full CFP is copied below:
TAG and the CAA present…
In April of 2016 the Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) teamed up with the Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA) conference to run a successful Digital TAG (digiTAG) session in Oslo, Norway. This session sought to question, challenge, appraise and reconceive the epistemological and research-oriented implications of the digital turn in archaeology, including its larger social, political and economic consequences.
That event, building on a long history of engagement with digital processes and digital media at both the TAG and CAA conferences, brought together 15 practitioners from around the world working in all domains of archaeology–from the lab to the field, from the museum to the classroom. Here they situated their (and others’) use of digital technologies within wider theoretical contexts, and with critical self-awareness, thereby opening up a space for rigorous evaluations of impact and reflections on overall disciplinary change. digiTAG 2 now aims to build upon the success of the first digiTAG, extending critical conversation about the discipline’s digital engagements at a finer-grained level in concert with a diverse audience of theoretical archaeologists.
However, digiTAG 2 seeks to narrow our discussion, in specific, on the concept of digital storytelling and the ramifications of the digital turn on larger interpretations of the past. Given the frequency and intensity with which digital media are now enrolled to structure, articulate, visualise and circulate information for the production of archaeological narratives, we invite participants to present papers that critically consider the impact of the digital turn upon archaeological interpretation and archaeology’s many stories.
Whether you direct your digital engagements at professional, academic or non-specialist audiences – whether you deploy digital tools for data collection, data analysis, synthesis, and dissemination or beyond – we ask, how are your stories affected? Does the digital enable new and different narratives? Does it extend or narrow audience engagement? When does it harm or hinder, complicate or obfuscate? And when – and for whom – does it create richer, more meaningful storytelling about the past?
To explore these questions, we encourage both traditional conference papers, as well as more experimental forms of (analogue or digital) argumentation, narrativising and delivery of your talk. Ultimately, digiTAG 2 aims to delve into the critical implications of archaeologists’ use of digital technologies on processes of knowledge creation.
Submit titles & abstracts (up to 250 words) to
[log in to unmask] by 15 November 2016.
