Browsing by Projects - Researcher "Dr. CAI Shengdan"

Mobile 3D scanning technologies have recently become more accessible, enabling everyday users to capture spaces as 3D models with ease. While initially adopted for professional purposes such as design, documentation, and real estate, mobile 3D scanning is now being used to preserve spaces of personal significance, such as childhood homes or transitional living spaces. This trend is particularly relevant in the context of increasingly mobile populations (e.g., digital nomads, expatriates, and international students). As mobile 3D scanning becomes more popular, it shows potential to become an integral part of memory-making, much like mobile photography. Despite its growing use, the implications of mobile 3D scanning for memory studies remain underexplored. Research on digital memory has often focused on themes of connectivity and placelessness. While these characteristics are praised for liberating memory from physical boundaries, they are also criticised for fostering shallow and fleeting engagements with places. A tension emerges in digital memory studies between the static, fixed nature of physical space and the fluid, dynamic flow of information within connected digital networks. However, the rise of locative media challenges this perceived incompatibility. For example, Augmented Reality applications enable tourists to intensively interact with both superimposed digital content and physical sites. Mobile 3D scanning pushes this shift further by compelling users to digitally preserve spaces they find meaningful, while also prompting them to revisit these spaces, along with the memories associated with them, through the act of scanning. Investigating the relationship between mobile 3D scanning and memory practices offers an opportunity to bridge this theoretical incompatibility by integrating human actors, digital tools, and ongoing memory practices within the same physical space. While existing theories of memory media often emphasise representational outcomes such as the final 3D models produced, this study shifts the focus to the ongoing memory practices that unfold during the process of scanning. Unlike the instantaneous act of photography, scanning requires users to physically move through and interact with a space, enabling them to revisit familiar places, uncover forgotten corners, and notice overlooked objects. As users navigate their surroundings with the scanning device, their attention, perceptions, and actions evolve, transforming memory-making into an active and embodied process. To investigate this ongoing process, this study draws on the concept of affordance, which highlights the mutuality of an actor’s perceptions and the capabilities of objects, environments, or technologies. This framework allows for an examination of the dynamic interactions between human actors, digital tools, and physical spaces, focusing on how these interactions afford specific memory practices. This study will employ a participatory workshop approach in which participants will be trained in mobile 3D scanning techniques and tasked with documenting spaces of personal significance. Through follow-up reflections and discussions, participants will provide insights into what memory practices are afforded during pre-scanning preparation, the scanning process, and post-scanning review. By tapping into mobile 3D scanning as an entry point, this study reconciles the incompatibility between physical and digital by taking into account the interplay between human actors, digital tools, and physical space in affording memory practices. Beyond academic contributions, the findings have practical applications for improving public literacy in 3D technologies and guiding the design of future tools for memory preservation. While the study focuses on the production of memory, it also lays the foundation for future research into how 3D-scanned memories are shared and experienced by others.