Event Title
Digital Epistemologies; Engaging the Public
Location
CB1-105
Start Date
4-11-2017 8:15 AM
End Date
4-11-2017 9:45 AM
Description
Learning / Knowing / Having / Sharing: Digital Epistemologies, Spaces of Learning, and Scalar (Ashley Byock, Tassie Gniady and David Kloster)
In his "Theses on the Epistemology of the Digital: Advice For the Cambridge Centre for Digital Knowledge" (2014), Alan Liu argues that "[a]n honest effort to grapple with digital knowledge will . . . require the Centre for Digital Knowledge [at Cambridge University] to let go of too fixed an adherence to established modern ideas of knowledge (here simplistically branded ‘Enlightenment')." He notes that "there are new systems, forms, and standards of knowledge" that have reshaped not only epistemological methodologies but also the relationship between knowledge and the public sphere ("Theses"). Liu's theses further suggest that sequential logic, centers of authority (or authorized centers), and knowledge hierarchies operate to corral and shape the forms of knowledge that emerged (or perhaps were produced) in and through Enlightenment structures (and publics); however, they are attuned to a different logic of knowledge and no longer pertain in our more recent digital environments.
Liu's comments implicitly arise in part from a recognition that digital scholarship entangles modes of knowing with the content of knowledge. This is a question that arises consistently when we bring digital humanities modes into the classroom; and yet, it isn't one we regularly reflect on as part of teaching DH. For the most part, students experience digital spaces as more informal spaces. We don't do our students any favors when we treat digital environments – particularly DH data-visualization or research-oriented environments – as new containers for familiar content. Transposing the traditional essay into a digital space just doesn't make sense, as Microsoft's terrible "digital essay" application, Sway, proves. This roundtable takes up the problems of technology and pedagogy, communication of knowledge, and the nature of digital humanities itself as both mode and methodology across interdisciplinary bounds. As Liu points out, disciplinary boundaries come out of the same structures of epistemology that he finds to be rendered at least partially obsolete. Combining the experiences of the DH director on a very small liberal arts campus (Ashley Byock, Edgewood College), a DH cyberinfrastructure manager and DH instructor at a large research university (Tassie Gniady, Indiana University – Bloomington), and a programmer in DH cyberinfrastructure and student in Tassie's Scalar course (David Kloster, Indiana University – Bloomington), we propose to set out modes for integrating a critical perspective on pedagogy and epistemology into DH learning.
We propose that this is a crucial and often overlooked aspect of DH pedagogy in order to avoid the pitfalls of treating DH tools as merely part of a larger digital landscape. We must heed Liu's other call for a critical digital humanities that applies the methodologies of an academic community to the material at hand. This group proposes to focus in particular on the use of Scalar, developed by scholars at USC, as an example of a free, open-source DH platform conducive to a critical meta-discourse around pedagogy and epistemology.
Engaging the Public: Virtual Reality, Photogrammetry, and Accessibility (Tassie Gniady and David Kloster)
Given the intersectional nature of good digital humanities scholarship, it only makes sense that one source of intersection lies outside the university. At Indiana University—Bloomington the Advanced Visualization Lab and the Cyberinfrastructure for Digital Humanities Group are in the same Research Technologies portfolio and often work together, but approaching these two research entities as someone without a connection to IU is difficult.
One of our community partners is the Monroe County Public Libraries. Taking two of our most popular areas of expertise, virtual reality and 3D object creation via photogrammetry, two camps will run side-by-side in June of 2017. As one set of campers create a virtual downtown with any added twists they wish, another set will go on photo safaris to capture outdoor works of art and items from the Monroe County History Center, then learn how to stitch and clean them to make 3D digital objects. Finally, the virtual reality camp will integrate the 3D objects before the public showcase capping off the week.
Both the constituency of these camps and their sources of data are important to us. Many of the campers (ages 12 and up) do not have access to these technologies anywhere besides the public library, and, because the camps are free, there is no financial barrier to entry. Camps held at the public library often draw from a wide cross-section of the Bloomington population, unlike events held on campus—despite the fact that the two entities are only two blocks away from each other. Secondly, by focusing on downtown Bloomington and its environs, campers will be taking spaces they are familiar with and rendering them in new ways that go beyond simple recreation—for example, we plan to encourage the creation of a sculpture park that doesn't exist in the real world and can include photogrammatized objects as well as virtually created ones. Similarly, campers can add interiors to some of the buildings in the downtown square and create any kind of rooms they wish.
It is our hope that by reaching out to the community in this way, by marrying history, reality, and imagination, that some of the work done on campus will carry over and attract community members to continue to experiment on their own at the public library (which owns a collection of HTC Vives and had Unity installed in a lab of computers), to attend public lectures and workshops on campus, and to generally break down some of the barriers that may make some members of our community feel less engaged with the university and/or the new technologies it offers.
I will bring 3D prints resulting from the camp, as well as environments created by our campers (as well as some Google Cardboards).
Digital Epistemologies; Engaging the Public
CB1-105
Learning / Knowing / Having / Sharing: Digital Epistemologies, Spaces of Learning, and Scalar (Ashley Byock, Tassie Gniady and David Kloster)
Engaging the Public: Virtual Reality, Photogrammetry, and Accessibility (Tassie Gniady and David Kloster)
