Statues of the Late Antique Roman Forum: Historical Memory and Digital Reconstruction

FAIN: RF-50008-09

UCLA; Regents of the University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA 90024-4201)
Diane G. Favro (Project Director: September 2008 to June 2011)

The proposed digital project explores the issues of representing late antique memory practices by supplementing the ongoing projects at UCLA's Experiential Technologies Center, chiefly the "Digital Roman Forum." In its current form, UCLA's computer model of the Forum applies stringent archeological criteria to architectural representation. Statues and other monuments do not yet appear in the digital reconstruction, because no data indicates either the scale or the orientation of the original works. The first phase of the project will be to map the late antique statue plinths into their original display spots so as to reveal the topographical significance of their inscriptions. The second phase will be to create animated videos that focus on the location of monuments, their site lines, and their proximity to processional routes to explore how the monuments framed perceptions of architecture and topography and enriched the meanings of downtown Rome's open-air displays.

Associated Products

Visualizing Statues in the Late Antique Roman Forum (Article)
Title: Visualizing Statues in the Late Antique Roman Forum
Author: Gregor Kalas
Abstract: Parallel vetted publication of the NEH sponsored project "Visualizing Statues in the Late Antique Roman Forum"
Year: 2011
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Urban History

“Teaching Digital Humanities: Principles, Practices, and Politics,” (Book Section)
Title: “Teaching Digital Humanities: Principles, Practices, and Politics,”
Author: Diane Favro co-author
Editor: Brett D. Hirsch
Abstract: Examination of pedagogical issues relating to the digital humanities based on various projects created at UCLA. Among these is the NEH Sponsored Visualizing Statues in the Late Antique Roman Forum which was incorporated in both undergraduate and graduate courses. Focusing on movement, the project allowed students to explore such issues as the cultural constitution of experience, differences in artistic and textual conveyors of meaning, and the evaluation of architectural environments while in motion
Year: 2012
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Book Title: Teaching Digital Humanities

Texts and Topography: Embodying the Roman Street (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Texts and Topography: Embodying the Roman Street
Author: Diane Favro
Abstract: In classical studies, the association of words and places has centered on textual references. Researchers have scoured through epigrams, letters, histories and other written sources seeking descriptive passages about spaces, buildings, streets, landscapes, and cities. Yet words literally occupied places. Thousands of inscriptions embellished and informed Roman environments, though they are usually studied ripped from their original contexts. The Visualizing Statues in the Late Antique Roman Forum project created at UCLA with support from the NEH, interrogates how the placement of inscriptions in the center of Rome as well as their content is essential to understanding their meaning.
Date: 6/23/2011
Conference Name: Digital Humanities and the History of Rhetoric, Rhetoric Society of America

Digitizing statues in the Late Antique Roman Forum (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Digitizing statues in the Late Antique Roman Forum
Author: Gregor Kalas
Abstract: A presentation of the "Visualizing Statues in the Late Antique Roman Forum" project.
Date: 2/3/2011
Conference Name: Eastern Tennessee Chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America

Visualizing History: Ancient Rome and Egypt’s Karnak (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Visualizing History: Ancient Rome and Egypt’s Karnak
Author: Diane Favro
Abstract: The visualization of historical environments has become multi-sensory. Students today can move through ancient Egypt and Rome, experience not only sights and movement, but sounds and textures.
Date: 10/29/2011
Conference Name: UCLA Parents' Weekend attended by 5000

The Epigraphic Habits of Honorius and the Reuse of Monuments in Late Antique Rome (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: The Epigraphic Habits of Honorius and the Reuse of Monuments in Late Antique Rome
Author: Gregor Kalas
Abstract: An analysis of the Visualizing Antique Sculptures in the Late Antique Roman Forum project funded by NEH
Date: 10/10/2011
Conference Name: Gaudeamus Igitur: Conference in Honor of Dale Kinney, Bryn Mawr

Building Ancient Rome, Bit by Byte (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Building Ancient Rome, Bit by Byte
Abstract: A presentation of digital simulations of ancient Rome
Author: Diane Favro
Date: 10/6/2011
Location: Penn Humanities Forum, University of Pennsylvania

Building Ancient Rome, Bit by Bit (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: Building Ancient Rome, Bit by Bit
Author: Diane Favro
Abstract: A historiographical analysis of digital projects on ancient Rome
Date Range: 7/28/2011
Location: Broadening the Digital Humanities, NEH Summer Institute, University of Southern California

Renewed Time at the Late Antique Portico of the Harmonized Gods (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Renewed Time at the Late Antique Portico of the Harmonized Gods
Author: Gregor Kalas
Abstract: Remembering the past in the Porticus Deorum in the Forum Romanum.
Date: 4/15/2011
Conference Name: Annual meeting of the Society of Architectural Historians

Altered Memories in the Statues of the Theodosian Dynasty in Rome (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Altered Memories in the Statues of the Theodosian Dynasty in Rome
Author: Gregor Kalas
Abstract: A study of how statues create urban narratives based on the Visualizing Statues in the Late Antique Roman Forum
Date: 4/10/2011
Conference Name: Memoria Romana, University of Texas

Digital Explorations of Past Worlds: From Karnak to Ancient Rome (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Digital Explorations of Past Worlds: From Karnak to Ancient Rome
Abstract: Casestudies in the use of digital reconstructions for research and teaching.
Author: Diane Favro
Date: 2/2/2010
Location: University of Iowa

Mapping Lost Places: GIS and Moving Through Ancient Worlds (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Mapping Lost Places: GIS and Moving Through Ancient Worlds
Author: Diane Favro
Abstract: An exploration of digital tools for analyzing movement in ancient simulations.
Date: 2/25/2011
Conference Name: Mapping Place: GIS and the Spatial Humanities Conference, UCSB

Visualizing Statues in the Late Antique Roman Forum (Exhibition)
Title: Visualizing Statues in the Late Antique Roman Forum
Curator: Diane Favro
Abstract: Featured project in the opening of the Digital Research Commons in the YRL Research Library at UCLA
Year: 2011

---