Re-figuring Digitisation Experiments in Heritage for a Shared Future

In the context of global climate crisis and geopolitical instability, there is a recognised need for cultural heritage practice to move beyond conventional digital preservation, to embrace processes of reinterpretation (Rinehardt & Ippolito 2014; Dekker 2018). These approaches challenge conventional value paradigms that are, on one hand, shaped by markets that privilege authenticity, authorship and ownership and, on the other hand, are increasingly implicated in data-driven economies. How might perceptions of cultural value be transformed through practices that allow digital artefacts to belong to a wider community, where (re)use becomes embedded in creative methods of the (net)work?

This chapter discusses how large-scale heritage digitisation projects, such as Tuvalu's ‘First Digital Nation’, navigate economic landscapes underpinned by techno-colonial mindsets where institutions or corporations claim ownership of and privatise data produced by their users. It also explores how creative digital practices offer alternative methods of sharing and ‘re-figuring’ significant objects and stories to (re)claim cultural heritage, looking specifically to the work of contemporary artist, Morehshin Allahyari, as a model for such processes. The chapter argues that, while re-figuration may imply a loss of the original in favour of a copy, it also dismantles structures of technical and economical domination, providing a more climate-friendly solution towards preserving cultural heritage.