[en] From Optical Fiber To Conceptual CyberinfrastructurePatrik Svensson, HUMlab, Umeå University
Abstract
[en]
There is currently an infrastructure turn with very real implications for the humanities
and digital humanities. It comes not only with presumed technology or infrastructure, but
also with certain assumptions, discursive patterns, and models. This paper analyzes these
critically and advocates a humanities-based notion of cyberinfrastructure, not necessarily
built on a science-and-engineering paradigm or exclusively grounded in existing humanities
infrastructure. It is argued that we need to maintain a critical stance while
simultaneously engaging in the exploration of research issues and technologies. There is
often a gap between the material details of infrastructure and underlying, foundational
ideas, and it is suggested that a model based on conceptual cyberinfrastructure and design
parameters can be one way of connecting the ideational level with actual implementation.
HUMlab at Umeå University serves as a case study.
[en] Humanities Approaches to Graphical DisplayJohanna Drucker, Breslauer Professor of Bibliographical Studies Department of Information Studies, UCLA
Abstract
[en]
As digital humanists have adopted visualization tools in their work, they have borrowed
methods developed for the graphical display of information in the natural and social
sciences. These tools carry with them assumptions of knowledge as observer-independent and
certain, rather than observer co-dependent and interpretative. This paper argues that we
need a humanities approach to the graphical expression of interpretation. To begin, the
concept of data as a given has to be rethought through a humanistic lens and
characterized as capta, taken and constructed. Next, the forms for graphical
expression of capta need to be more nuanced to show ambiguity and complexity. Finally, the
use of a humanistic approach, rooted in a co-dependent relation between observer and
experience, needs to be expressed according to graphics built from
interpretative models. In summary: all data have to be understood as capta and the
conventions created to express observer-independent models of knowledge need to be
radically reworked to express humanistic interpretation.
[en] Because It's Not There: Ekphrasis and the Threat of Graphics in
Interactive FictionAaron Kashtan, Department of English, University of Florida
Abstract
[en]
Existing scholarship on interactive fiction (IF, also known as the text adventure) tends
to treat it as a video game genre and/or as a category of electronic literature. In this
essay I argue that IF can be understood as participating in traditions of visual prose and
ekphrastic textuality, insofar as IF consists of room and object descriptions which direct
the player to visualize the things they describe. Unlike traditional ekphrastic
literature, however, IF also asks the player to take practical actions in response to the
images he or she visualizes. During the commercial era of IF, ekphrasis was the most
effective means available of providing players with immersive visual experiences. However,
graphical video games have now surpassed IF in this area. Therefore, in order to justify
the continued existence of IF, contemporary IF authors have been forced to conceive of the
visuality of IF otherwise than in terms of the logic of transparency. One strategy for
doing this, exemplified by Nick Montfort's game, Ad Verbum,
is to abandon visuality almost entirely and emphasize IF's linguistic and textual
qualities. An alternative strategy, exemplified by Emily Short's game City of Secrets, is to assert that IF is visual in a non-transparent way,
because IF offers visual experiences which are user-generated rather than pre-rendered.
[en] Impractical ApplicationsWendell Piez, Senior Consultant, Mulberry Technologies, Inc.
Abstract
[en]
The question of how we justify “digital humanities” to unknowing or
skeptical audiences cannot be disentangled from how we justify studying the humanities in
an era of anxiety and doubt regarding the pursuit of anything without supposedly practical
aims. Answering these concerns requires not only rejecting the faulty assumptions on which
they are based, but also bringing more information to bear regarding the connections
between our work and the values, both “practical” (judged in terms of
effects) and not (judged on its own terms) of the larger economy and culture in which we
participate.
