Materiality and virtuality, reconstructing and exploring the past through objects: Mobility of objects across boundaries

Abstract

This chapter examines how the Mobility of Objects project sought to enhance the visibility and accessibility of regional museum collections in the UK and Western Europe, leading collaborators to engage critically with the relationship between virtuality and materiality. It addresses three interconnected issues: first, the conceptualisation and application of the terms virtuality, materiality, the virtual, and the material; second, the role of haptic and sensory engagement by academics, pupils, and the public in revealing the multiplicity and “realities” of medieval materials; and third, the potential of digital and virtual-reality reconstructions to open medieval objects to wider audiences and illuminate the dynamic interplay between the virtual and the material. Rob Shields’s observation that “the digitally virtual is […] embedded in the ongoing life of the concrete,” offering both imaginative possibility and a basis for material-world action, provides a critical point of departure for this discussion.