Digital surrogacy: politics and aesthetics in visualising the historical past of a city

Abstract

As part of the culturally focused direction of travel surrounding Gothenburg’s fourth centenary, several departments of the municipality have collaborated to produce a virtual model of Gothenburg as it was in the seventeenth century, first presented to the public in 2017. This case study analyses the city’s approaches to displaying and vitalising the model, the role of the built environment as a cultural backdrop, and the efficacy of cultural transmission within this digital context. Principally, this analysis offers a critical response to the depiction of the city’s cultural heritage, but it also aims to examine the wider role of digital visualisation in contemporary heritage discourse. Characterising the realisation of the model’s current iteration as a stepping stone for further development, potential points of departure for creativity and meaning-making within the model itself and in a broader context are made to inform future heritage practices in the city.