
Dirk H. R. SpennemannCharles Sturt University · SAEVS
Dirk H. R. Spennemann
Doctor of Philosophy
Currently focusing on the cultural heritage implications of genAI and the heritage and ecology of ornamental palms
About
571
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Introduction
Currently, I am working primarily on the relationship between cultural heritage and generative AI and the cultural heritage of COVID-19 (both as part of my long-term interest in heritage futures), the cultural appropriation of Indigenous Australian motifs by 1950s Australian potteries and (long-term) on the cultural heritage and ecology of ornamental palms.
Additional affiliations
January 1993 - January 2022
August 1989 - January 1993
Republic of the Marshall islands
Position
- Government Archaeologist
Education
August 1985 - July 1989
September 1978 - August 1985
Publications
Publications (571)
It is widely understood that the preservation of cultural heritage sites and objects is underpinned by values projected by the public onto essentially inanimate objects, that these values vary in strength, and that they are mutable qualities. Using hindsight, the contemporary values are projected on past creations that persist into the present. If...
In a broad conceptual framing, cultural heritage is the result of humankind's interactions with their environment and one another, both in its tangible and intangible expressions. Cultural heritage management is by nature a retrospective discipline, as the assessment and evaluation of cultural significance of heritage assets requires the passage of...
The standard heritage planning process follows the trajectory of identification, nomination, evaluation, listing and protection. The epistemology of the nominations and valuations is only rarely, if ever, examined. The Johari window was developed by the psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham as a tool to examine group dynamics, in particul...
Generative artificial intelligence (genAI) language models have become firmly embedded in public consciousness. Their abilities to extract and summarise information from a wide range of sources in their training data have attracted the attention of many scholars. This paper examines how four genAI large language models (ChatGPT, GPT4, DeepAI, and G...
The first half of 2023 was dominated by a public discussion of the nature and implications of generative artificial intelligence (genAI) models that are poised to become the most significant cross-cultural global disruptor since the invention of the World-Wide Web. It can be predicted that genAI will affect how cultural heritage is being managed an...
The global COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of all Christmas markets which are regarded as the quintessential German heritage event in the pre-Christmas weeks. Using visitor figures for major Christmas markets, this paper demonstrates the impact of the pandemic on the markets. It shows that following the nationwide cancellation in 2020 and...
Shifting baselines, whereby people’s perceptions of what was the “natural” state of the environment changes with each generation, hinders conservation, restoration, and management. Formal and informal historical animal records can be used to inform past biological, ecological, and environmental patterns and processes. Trophy specimens are cultural...
This study investigated whether trophy taxidermy specimens of Australia’s largest freshwater fish, Murray cod (Maccullochella peelii), can provide accurate records of historical body size. Taxidermy mounts came mostly from informal collections in hotels from across the Murray–Darling Basin, south-eastern Australia, comprising 20% whole-body and 80%...
Set in a wide open plain, the monolith of Uluṟu (‘Ayers Rock’) has become an internationally recognizable symbol for the Australian outback, currently attracting hundreds of thousands of tourists each year. Promoted since the 1950s as an exotic tourist destination, one of the major activities has been the ‘conquest’ of Uluṟu by completing the steep...
A survey of suburban street trees in central Albury in southwestern NSW in July-August 2019 recorded 15 Phoenix canariensis and Washingtonia robusta palms growing as epiphytes in Platanus x acerifolia and Ulmus glabra trees. The survey was repeated in September 2024. All but two epiphytes encountered in 2019 were still alive in 2024 with no signifi...
Increased affluence and personal mobility in the 1950s resulted in Australian families taking weekend trips and holidays at domestic locations. To service the emerging demand fpr memen-toes Australian pottery manufacturers began to produce souvenirs specific to destinations. A key tourist activity throughout the latter half of the 20th century was...
The document pulls together a chronology of data on the visitation of and tourism at Uluṟu ('Ayers Rock'), with special emphasis on climbing Uluṟu from the nineteenth century until the final termination of public ascents on 26 October 2019.
Increased affluence and personal mobility in the 1950s resulted in Australian families taking weekend trips and holidays at domestic locations. To service the emerging demand mementoes, Australian pottery manufacturers began to produce souvenir ware with destination imagery. This document pulls together imagery of mid-century souvenir ware depictin...
Increased affluence and personal mobility in the 1950s resulted in Australian families taking weekend trips and holidays at domestic locations. Some destinations, in particular the more remote and difficult to access localities, were serviced by tour companies that not only provided transport but often also operated accommodation facilities. One of...
While three-dimensional visualization has become a common tool in various cultural heritage applications, the emphasis has been on high fidelity representation, essentially the generation of digital twins or digital reconstructions. Overlooked appears to be the utility of 3D in research collaboration where one of the researchers has access to the o...
Founded by Samuel Vandersluis in 1948, Vande Pottery in Mosman (NSW) operated until 1958. During its period of operation, Vande frequently advertised for decorators and artists, drawing many grad-uates from the then East Sydney Technical College (later National Art School, Sydney). While the number of artists employed at Vande grew over time, the e...
During the first decade of the post-World War II era a number of small-volume potteries sprung up to service a domestic demand for decorative and special occasion pottery as well as souvenir ware. Most of these went out of business once cheap overseas imports, primarily from Japan, were allowed to enter the Australian market. Many of these small po...
This paper documents Mexican-themed wall decorations as well as sweets and hors d’oeuvre dishes produced by the Sydney pottery Vandé between 1951 and 1961. The overall level of production is unclear, but the relative paucity of these on the antiques and online auction market suggests that the production would not have been very large.
Tactile aspects of the urban environment may be recognised through various capacities of human sensation, including cutaneous, kinaesthetic, and proprioceptive awareness. Haptic attributes often need intentional engagement for ultimate experience and information provision, but it is exactly this imprecision that initiates challenges when dealing wi...
The authorized heritage discourse sensu Smith asserts that cultural heritage, and in particular heritage places, can be managed for the benefit of present and future generations through appropriate measures of identification, protection and conservation. Comprehensive planning at the individual place as well as community/local government level is t...
This paper discusses two post-World War II-era beer tankards of German manufacture.
The imagery on the tankards represents a highly incongruous juxtaposition of traditional German (Bavarian) imagery of chalets and castles in the Alps with the image of Gwoya Tjungurrayi, a man of Warlpiri-Anmatyerre descent.
To explore the multisensory experience and heritage potential of the major tourist site Salamanca Market (Hobart, Australia), a mixed-methods approach employed semi-structured interviews and field observations/measurements to uniquely obtain quantitative and qualitative sensory experience data over the 2023 winter period. Interviews (n = 9) and a s...
This paper documents an Indigenous Australian souvenir boomerang dated to 1928 which was most likely produced by the Indigenous Australian community at La Perouse (Sydney, NSW). It represents an early example of tourist art, specifically produced as a commemorative item for an event attended by a large number of local, interstate and international...
This document discusses the artists identified in the formal published rolls for the electorate of the Commonwealth Division of Warringah, State District of Mosman, Subdivision of Neutral Bay for 1949, 1954 and 1958.
This document discusses the artists identified in the formal published rolls for the electorate of the Commonwealth Division of Warringah, NSW State Electoral District ofMosman, Subdivision of Seaforth and the Commonwealth Division of Mackellar, NSW State Electoral District of Mosman, Subdivision of Balgowlah for 1949, 1954 and 1958.
Deliberate academic misconduct by students often relies on the use of segments of externally authored text, generated either by commercial contract authoring services or by generative Artificial intelligence language models. While revision save identifier (rsid) numbers in Microsoft Word files are associated with edit and save actions of a document...
This document discusses the artists identified in the formal published rolls for the electorate of the Commonwealth Division of Warringah, Sub-division of Mosman for 1949, 1954 and 1958.
Description of a pottery scatter on near Korolevu, Coral Coast, Viti Levy, Fiji. Surface finds of pottery and shells are described
Data set establishing a chronology of beakers ('Glühweinbecher,' 'Weihnachtsmarkttassen') produced for German Christmas markets
Sensory experience pertaining to any of the recognized senses can manifest as a form of intangible cultural heritage, therefore having considerable value for society. Heritage research into multiple sensory components needs to consider not simply the social experience of each of the individual modalities, but how these sensory components combine or...
Many aspects of intangible cultural heritage have associated objects of material culture that augment or enable aspects of intangible heritage to be exercised or emphasized. Christmas markets have been publicized as the quintessential event in Germany leading up to Christmas, with the over 2000 locations attracting large numbers of local, domestic,...
Dataset of prices for mulled wine for sale at German Christmas markets.
When trying to express historic prices and costs in present-day values, a simple conversion from Pounds (£) to Australian Dollars ($) does not suffice as inflation needs to be taken into account. This calculator uses post-World War II consumer-price index data published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics as well as historic data compiled from v...
Single and multiple sense stimuli create sensescapes, which combine to be perceived as multisensory integrated products. Such encounters may be experienced across multiple spaces and have importance due to esthetic sensuality, cultural value, economic benefit, or religious significance. This article presents a methodological protocol for the identi...
Purpose
The use of generative artificial intelligence (genAi) language models such as ChatGPT to write assignment text is well established. This paper aims to assess to what extent genAi can be used to obtain guidance on how to avoid detection when commissioning and submitting contract-written assignments and how workable the offered solutions are....
Following the protocol for the reporting of conversations with ChatGPT [1] , this supportive document provides the full text of the conversations with ChatGPT that were used and analysed in the following paper : Spennemann et al. (2023). ChatGPT giving advice on how to cheat in university assignments: how workable are its suggestions? Interactive T...
This supportive document provides the individual scores for various responses by ChatGPT when giving advice on how to cheat in university assignments as discussed in the following paper : Spennemann et al. (2023). ChatGPT giving advice on how to cheat in university assignments: how workable are its suggestions? Interactive Technology and Smart Educ...
Purpose of Review
The response to COVID-19 in the global community resulted in a disruption of usual sensory experiences associated with quotidian life and special events. While research has investigated urban and rural soundscape alteration/change during COVID and post-COVID, no summative work has focused on soundscapes of traditional (heritage) f...
The personal and community identity of many areas of greater Europe has been interwoven with religious practice, with the ringing of church bells often dictating the quotidian rhythms of life. The symbolism of churches and church bells can be likened to that of monuments, with the erection of bell towers and the installation of bells engendering ce...
Olfactory elements of the human environment are essential with respect to culture, society, and heritage, and robust methodological approaches are necessary to identify and describe aspects of this sensory component. To accurately investigate and advance knowledge of olfactory composition of spaces and places, that is, a smellscape—an olfactory con...
The 2007 implementation of the Office Open XML standard for Microsoft Word introduced the assignation of individual revision save identifiers (Rsid) to document editing sessions that end in a save action. The relevant standards ECMA (2016) and ISO/ IEC 29500-1:2016 (2016) stipulate that these Rsid should be allocated randomised but with increasing...
Following the protocol for the reporting of conversations with ChatGPT , this supportive document provides the full text of the conversations with ChatGPT that were used and analysed in the following paper : Spennemann, D. H. R. (2024). Will Artificial Intelligence Affect How Cultural Heritage Will Be Managed in the Future? Responses Generated by F...
Purpose-Invented in late 1890s, asbestos cement sheeting rose to prominence during the post-Second World War period as a building material for low-cost housing by state housing commissions and low-income families ("fibro homes"). The adverse health effects of asbestos fibres in the building industry and home renovation activities are well documente...
Following the “authorized heritage discourse” in heritage management, visual components have traditionally formed the basis of aesthetic value assessment of heritage assets. Despite being considered important by national legislation and international conventions, other sensory components have been comparatively underresearched and are generally ign...
Christmas markets in Germany and Austria exhibit historic, mercantile, social and experiential dimensions, entrenching them both as a form of heritage and as visitable sites of society and culture, yet research into tourist perception of sensory and multisensory experiential components of these markets has been highly limited thus far. This paper e...
Date stone beetles (Coccotrypes dactyliperda Fabricius, 1801) tunnel into palm seeds to establish brood galleries with their larvae consuming the seed's albumen. Prior work examining the location of the initial penetration holes in de-fleshed seeds had shown a preference for the dorsal groove. This paper presents the data of a follow-up experiment...
Cultural heritage management at the local government level relies on community participation, mainly interested stakeholders, in the identification, nomination and, in some jurisdictions, the co-evaluation of heritage assets. These are then “listed,” i.e., included in planning schemes and other development controls. Such inclusion in planning schem...
The aim of this document is to pull together the historic and pictorial evidence for the palm plantation at the western end of Dean Street, Albury (New South Wales) and to provide an assessment of the extent of self-seeded specimens in that planting
Canary Islands date palms (Phoenix canariensis) were introduced to Australia in the second half of the nineteenth century as ornamental plants, where they have become naturalised in those urban, peri-urban and agricultural landscapes where hot dry summers and cool winters or mild temperatures prevail. Given their persistence, and proven resilience...
The first half of 2023 was dominated by a public discussion of the nature and implications of generative Artificial intelligence (genAi) models that are poised to become the most significant cross-cultural global disruptor since the invention of the WorldWide Web. It can be predicted that genAi will affect how cultural heritage is being managed and...
The recent public release of the generative AI language model ChatGPT has captured the public imagination and has resulted in a rapid uptake and widespread experimentation by the general public and academia alike. The number of academic publications focusing on the capabilities as well as practical and ethical implications of generative AI has been...
Generative artificial intelligence (AI), in particular large language models such as ChatGPT have reached public consciousness with a wide-ranging discussion of their capabilities and suitability for various professions. Following the printing press and internet, generative AI language models are the third transformative technological invention wit...
The assessment and documentation of visual, auditory, and olfactory sensory experiences within urban environments is an emerging focus of research that has implications for the understanding of cultural heritage as well as community mental health. The common methodology to identify, describe, and document smells within environmental settings is sme...
The generative arti cial intelligence (AI) language model ChatGPT is programmed not to provide answers that are unethical or that may cause harm to people. By setting up user-created role-plays designed to alter ChatGPT's persona, ChatGPT can be prompted to answer with inverted moral valence supplying unethical answers. In this inverted moral valen...
The public release of ChatGPT, a generative artificial intelligence language model, caused widespread public interest in its abilities but also concern about the implications of the application on academia, depending on whether it was deemed benevolent (e.g., supporting analysis and simplification of tasks) or malevolent (e.g., assignment writing a...
Data set for the paper:
Spennemann, D. H. R. (2023). ChatGPT and the generation of digitally born “knowledge”: how does a generative AI language model interpret cultural heritage values? Knowledge, 3(3), 480-512. doi:10.3390/knowledge3030032
This report documents the dispersal of ripe oranges (Citrus x sinensis) of 110-210 g weight by Sulphur Crested Cockatoos (Cacatua galerita).
Generative artificial intelligence (AI), in particular large language models such as ChatGPT have reached public consciousness with a wide-ranging discussion of their capabilities and suitability for various professions. The extant literature on the ethics of generative AI revolves around its usage and application, rather than the ethical framework...
The documentation and management of the cultural heritage of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the heritage of the digital age are emerging discourses in cultural heritage management. The enthusiastic uptake of a generative artificial intelligence application (ChatGPT) by the general public and academics alike has provided an opportunity to explore...
The public release of ChatGPT has resulted in considerable publicity and has led to wide-spread discussion of the usefulness and capabilities of generative AI language models. Its ability to extract and summarise data from textual sources and present them as human-like contextual responses makes it an eminently suitable tool to answer questions use...
The aim of this document is to provide a photographic record of a rapid
survey of mid-twentieth century placemats and coasters made from cork, decorated with Indigenous Australian
imagery, and put the placemats into context.
The recent public release of the generative AI language model ChatGPT has captured the public
imagination and has resulted a rapid uptake and widespread experimentation by the general public and
academia alike. The number of academic publications focusing on the capabilities as well as practical and
ethical implications of generative AI has been gr...
The project ‘Material Culture of the COVID-19 pandemic’ aims to document various tangible manifestations of the pandemic. The aim of this document is to provide a formal documentation on a series of Rapid Antigen Tests that were acquired in Albury, NSW, or for use in Albury. All test sets described in this document have been handed to the Albury Li...
While the community of Australian planning professionals is familiar with the identification, interpretation and application of heritage conservation areas, this is not a concept that is familiar to the general public. Yet, none of the official publications issued by the New South Wales state heritage authorities provide a definition of the purpose...
Please cite the published version:
https://doi.org/10.3390/knowledge3030032
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In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2022, public uncertainty about the nature of the virus, and in particular its symptoms and mode of transmission, was met by the daily briefings issued by public health departments and political leaders. They were ill-equipped to respond to emerging knowledge management demands in an agile fashion....
Born-digital content is rapidly becoming the norm for literary works, professional reports, academic journal articles, and formal corporate correspondence. From the perspective of digital forensics, there is a need to understand the origin of a document and its entire creation process, from outlining and drafting to editing the final version of the...
During 2020 and 2021 the COVID -19 pandemic developed into a global socio-economic disruptor on an unprecedented scale. Personal and professional lives had to be readjusted many times over to deal with new realities created by ever changing public health orders. Several aspects of research, teaching and art practice could either not proceed altoget...
Introduced to Australia in the 1860s, Queen Palm (Syagrus romanzoffiana) (family Arecaceae) became a popular ornamental plant in indoor and outdoor settings in the late 19 th Century. Queen Palms saw a revival in popularity being heavily promoted in the 1960s and 1970s, resulting in extensive plantings commonly associated with new housing developme...
As the COVID-19 pandemic begins to abate and national public health systems are treating the SARS-CoV-2 virus as endemic, many public health measures are no longer mandated but remain recommended with voluntary participation. One of these is the wearing of fitted face masks, initially mandated to contain, or at least slow, the spread of SARS-CoV-2,...
One of the major public health measures to manage and contain the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic was to engage in systematic contact tracing, which required gastronomy, community and sporting venues to keep patron registers. Stand-alone and web-based applications, developed by a range of private IT providers, soon replaced pen-and-paper lists. W...
During World War I the soldiers’ life at and behind the frontline was captured by personal photography. While heavily regulated and censored on the allied side, conditions were more relaxed for German soldiers, and for German officers, in particular. Drawing on a large sample set of images of the same subject matter, a French church bell with a pat...
As the COVID-19 pandemic begins to abate and national public health systems are treating the SARS-Cov-2 virus as endemic, many public health measures are no longer mandated, but remain recommended with voluntary participation. One of these is the wearing of fitted face masks, initially mandated to contain, or at least slow, the spread of SARS-CoV-2...
The Alice Springs sculptor Patricia Elvins created a number of busts of Indigenous Australian men, women, and children, which were distributed as casts for the gift and souvenir market. Produced between the early-1960s and the early-1990s, these varnished casts exist with four different artists’ signatures, representing collaboration with different...
Crowdsourcing has been widely used in cultural heritage research, but mainly from an institutional perspective. Research into items of material culture often requires the researcher to examine specimens held in private hands. The dispersed nature of such holdings, primarily as collectable and, thus, tradeable objects, requires different techniques...
During the COVID-19 pandemic large numbers of single-use, surgical style face masks were lost or discarded in public spaces, primarily in on public streets and car parking settings. Many of these masks were blown onto the road surfaces where they were subjected to degradation through the tire impact of passing vehicle traffic. As series of field ob...
A flock of Little Corellas Cacatua sanguinea deposited six large American Sweetgum (Liquidambar) Liquidambar
styraciflua fruit and three Mediterranean Cypress Cupressus sempervirens cones under the canopy of a Yellow Box Eucalyptus
melliodora in a suburban backyard in Albury, New South Wales. Subsequent searches encountered American Sweetgum fruit...
Human existence is complemented by environmental sounds as by-products of people’s activities as well as intentionally generated sounds that allow human society to function, including transport and traffic sounds and notification sounds. The resulting soundscapes surround and permeate people’s daily existence. Technological, as well as behavioural...
Psittacidae are on record as incidental stomatochorous dispersers of fruits and seeds. This document places on record observations of the fruit of American sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua), an exotic street tree, being dispersed by Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos into a suburban backyard in Albury (NSW).
Based on in-flight observations as well as fruit and seedballs encountered under trees frequented byx various parrot species , Psittacidae have been reported as incidental stomatochorous dispersers. This document places on record observations of two fruits of London Plane Trees (Platanus × acerifolia) dropped during mid-flightx by an undetermined b...
The emergence of the more infectious Delta and Omicron variants of SARS-Cov-2 in late 2021 saw pub-lic health advice formally counselling against the use of fabric masks as they were deemed to be less effec-tive than P2 / KN 95 masks. With the support of the managers of the donation centres of three charity shops in Albury (NSW, Australia), this st...
Two types of single-use surgical face masks were exposed to ten freeze-thaw cycles with prolonged pre-freezing immersion in water. The masks proved relatively resilient to the effects of repeated freeze-thaw actions. Localised pressure affected the efficacy of the hydrophobic electret charge of the blue, outward facing spun-bond layer. After two fr...
In late nineteenth-century France, church bells were an integral part of society, sounding the quotidian rhythms of life. During WWI, a shortage of metals for the war effort resulted in German authorities requisitioning church bells in Germany and occupied territories. While the sequestration of the only bell from the church L’Eglise Sainte-Geneviè...
Lost or discarded single-use surgical face masks have become a major environmental problem. Significantly , the thin polypropylene fabric used for the commonly three-ply masks is prone to shredding by mechanical forces. Masks blown onto road surfaces are run over by passing vehicles, which press parts of the mask fabric into the interstices between...
Lost or discarded single-use surgical face masks have become a major environmental problem. Significantly, the thin polypropylene non-woven fabric used for the commonly three-ply masks is prone to shredding by mechanical forces. Lost or discarded masks are commonly blown onto road surfaces and are run over by passing vehicles. Experiments which sub...
Lost or discarded single-use surgical face masks have become a major environmental problem. Significantly, the thin polypropylene fabric used for the commonly three-ply masks is prone to shredding by mechanical forces. During hot days, when bitumen attains a lower viscosity and thus becomes more sticky, masks blown onto road surfaces adhere to the...
SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing the COVID-19 pandemic, is only one in a line of coronaviruses
that has affected humans and, when seen from an epidemiologist’s perspective,
most certainly will not be the last. Indeed, zoonotic coronaviruses akin to SARS-CoV-2
are currently in existence in various host species. Yet, in the public debate there
seems to...
e date stone beetle, Coccotrypes dactyliperda, is a cryptic spermatophagus species that spends almost its entire life cycle inside the seeds of palms, esp. Phoenix sp. Only during dispersal, when the host seed has been largely eaten out, do females emerge for a short period of time in search of a fresh seed in which to establish new brood galleries...
Although valued by some artists since the mid 1920s, Indigenous Australian Art was derided as ‘primitive’ by mainstream Australia. This changed dramatically after World War II, when Australia experienced a boom in home and car ownership and saw an influx of economic migrants from Germany, and eastern European countries. Several of these migrants es...
Lost or discarded single-use surgical face masks have become a major environmental problem. Significantly , the thin polypropylene fabric used for the commonly three-ply masks is subject mechanical and general environmental decay. In situ observations of several masks in various environmental settings demonstrate a uniform decay with extensive flak...
Large numbers of Single Use Surgical-type Face Masks, used by the public as personal protective equipment during the 2020–2022 COVID-19 pandemic, have been lost or intentionally discarded and have entered the environment rather than the waste management stream. These masks, made from non-woven polypropylene fibers, will undergo environmental decay...
Despite church bell ringing being directly influenced by purposive human action, often as
a liturgical function, it creates a community soundscape with ascribed heritage values. While general heritage management processes and decisions are informed by heritage professionals with a broader range of experience, we find that church bell ringing is con...
The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020–2022 has revealed the vulnerability of modern society to a highly contagious airborne virus. Many spaces in the urban and built environment designed during the late twentieth and early twenty-first century are ill-suited to maintain the level of social distancing required to reduce the probability of virus transmission...
One of the tenets of much of the research into mechanical decay processes is
that the filaments of spunbonded fabrics deposited in an irregular fashion by the
movement of the spinneret. It is assumed that the distribution and orientation of
the fibres is truly random and that therefore the direction of abrasion has no effect
on the decay of the mas...
In early 2022 the author carried out a study into the archaeological recognizability of single-use surgical type face masks based on morphological criteria.During the collection of mask samples for that project it was often possible to also obtain the sales packaging of the masks primarily in order to record the technical details as represented on...