Digital Materiality and Sensory Experiences of Digitised Manuscripts

Digital Materiality and Sensory Experiences of Digitised Manuscripts

Digital Materiality and Sensory Experiences of Digitised Manuscripts: A phenomenological analysis on Greek religious manuscripts from Mount Athos To what extent can digitised manuscripts stimulate our senses? Historical objects such as manuscripts, sculptures, and paintings, are usually part of organisations, museums, and institutions that are responsible for their preservation, curation, and presentation to the audience, by creating collections. These objects either made of paper, parchment, wood, or metal are an essential part of the community or culture they are part of and represent. However, these materials can be destroyed, left us with meaningful historical and cultural gaps as, for example, happened many years ago when the Library of Alexandria was burned, and the fire “took” with it a huge amount of knowledge (Haughton, 2011). Nowadays, that digital technologies are an essential part of our lives, one way to ensure that historical collections will be available to the people, providing meaning and knowledge of the past and the present, is to transform them...
Read More
Phenomenological anecdote: Online education

Phenomenological anecdote: Online education

The desire to control the self-presentation "I open the camera, but not the microphone. I look the little box that shows me on the screen and notice that a tow truck is partially visible from the window behind me. My body freezes. I feel embarrassed and afraid that somebody may see it. “I need to have a professional look” I’m thinking. My eyes check all the small boxes on the screen one by one. Nobody pays attention to their camera. I want everything on my box on the screen to look tidy. It’s such a sunny day today and a nice background with the blue sky will be perfect. I lift my body a little bit on the front slowly. My eyes are starring at the screen. I grab the chair with both my hands and move to the left to hide the tow truck from my window on the screen. The truck is still there. “Does anybody has noticed already?”...
Read More
A first recap!

A first recap!

A first recap! The first period of our master is almost done. Time can fly. During this period, we had to follow two courses, Transformations in Digital Cultures and Real Virtualities. The first course provided an introduction to the digital world, such as digital cultures, digital sociology, social media and user practices, using Digital Ethnography and Qualitative Interviewing as research methods. The second focused on the changing relationship between the “real” and the “virtual”, by introducing us to phenomenology as a philosophical study and research approach. Both courses had fascinating, qualitative research methods, but the one I enjoyed most was the qualitative interview and its analysis. It is always amazing to talk to people and try to get into their lives and thought as a way to contribute to something bigger. I found myself enjoying Transformations in Digital Cultures, and more specifically the fact that offered a holistic view about what is social in digital media and the variety of forms...
Read More