Moving Beyond the Virtual Museum : Engaging Visitors Emotionally

In this paper, we firstly critique the state of the art on Virtual Museums (VM) in an effort to expose the many opportunities available to enroll these spaces into transformative and engaging cultural experiences. We then outline our attempts to stretch beyond the usual VM in order to connect it to visitors in a measurably emotional, participatory, interactive and social fashion. We discuss the foundations for a conceptual framework for the creation of VMs, grounded in a user-centered design methodology and related design and evaluation guidelines. We then introduce two main cultural heritage sites, which are used as case studies at the core of our efforts, and conclude by describing the many challenges they bring for pushing the boundaries on the human-felt impact of the virtual museum

Disentangling two fundamental paradigms in human-machine communication research: Media equation and media evocation

In this theoretical paper, we delineate two fundamental paradigms in how scholars conceptualize the nature of machines in human-machine communication (HMC). In addition to the well-known Media Equation paradigm, we distinguish the Media Evocation paradigm. The Media Equation paradigm entails that people respond to machines as if they are humans, whereas the Media Evocation paradigm conceptualizes machines as objects that can evoke reflections about ontological categories. For each paradigm, we present the main propositions, research methodologies, and current challenges. We conclude with theoretical implications on how to integrate the two paradigms, and with a call for mixed-method research that includes innovative data analyses and that takes ontological classifications into account when explaining social responses to machines

Narrative niche construction: Memory ecologies and distributed narrative identities

Memories of our personal past are the building blocks of our narrative identity. So, when we depend on objects and other people to remember and construct our personal past, our narrative identity is distributed across our embodied brains and an ecology of environmental resources. This paper uses a cognitive niche construction approach to conceptualise how we engineer our memory ecology and construct our distributed narrative identities. It does so by identifying three types of niche construction processes that govern how we interact with our memory ecology, namely creating, editing, and using resources in our memory ecology. It also conceptualises how identity-relevant information in objects and (family) stories is transmitted vertically, i.e., across different generations of people. Identifying these processes allows us to better understand the cultural information trajectories that constitute our memory ecologies. Thus, what I’ll argue is that our memory ecology distributes our narrative identity and that engineering our memory ecology is a form of narrative niche construction

Your Body of Water: A Somaesthetic Display for Embodied Reflection

In response to the Quantified Self movement, which uses body data for self-tracking and self-improvement, this thesis explores how aestheticized heart rate data can be used to get us more in touch with our bodies and how we are feeling. Utilizing somaesthetics, an interdisciplinary field with roots in philosophy that combines the soma (the living body) with aesthetics (our sensory perception and appreciation), this thesis explores how we can design interactions that help us to reflect on our embodied experience. Through a research through design process using somaesthetic appreciation design characteristics, I designed an interactive display that retrieved heart rate wirelessly with computer vision and then visualized one’s heart rate as water. The display was evaluated for somaesthetic characteristics using system critiques, and this evaluation method was found to be a timely and resource-effective way of evaluating a device for self reflection and embodiment

Infinite Instruments

Last login: Fri May 6 17:00:00 on console \u3e_ \u3erun BZE.exe Whether building websites from scratch, generating abstract video portraits with recursive machine-learning AI, mounting steel plate carvings with fishing hooks, or painting portraits of schoolgirls on skinned and tanned bunny hides, I seek to infiltrate the strange spaces where rationality and empiricist philosophy collapse into delirium and drift. Machines and animals are both organized bodies. All knowledge can be broken down to constituent parts: cells, atoms, grids and codes. All constellations of these fundamental parts are fictions. Fragmentation and re-organization are frontiers for new knowledge. By treating the objective as subjective, philosophy as poetry, and the concrete as indeterminate, we can begin to infiltrate the strange matter that slips between the cracks. I’m invested in the place where data turns to fiction. By inverting grids and data structures on their heads, I stress the subjective assumptions of complex technologies. By doing so, I can speak about the violence embedded in our shared technological and historical landscapes. \u3e

Writing the ethnographic story: Constructing narrative out of narratives

My first childhood memories circle around listening to stories, being intensely interested in people and their storytelling. Having grown up in a German-Silesian refugee family network meant that storytelling was part of the daily life, especially weekends. The old Heimat, now in Poland, behind the iron curtain, was constantly invoked when members of our Silesian family would visit each other for Sunday afternoon coffee and cake sessions. I used to sit on a footstool listening to stories about the town we all came from, stories about the war, grief, hunger, angst, violence. But also just stories about the family, the ones who died, where relatives and friends had ended up after the war, how difficult and humiliating it was to be the unwelcome stranger in the West German town in which I was born. I like stories, I am used to listening and, as a child, I grew into a listener who sat at the margins; a position I am still comfortable with and hence I have a certain feeling of unease with conventional interview situations

Directional adposition use in English, Swedish and Finnish

Directional adpositions such as to the left of describe where a Figure is in relation to a Ground. English and Swedish directional adpositions refer to the location of a Figure in relation to a Ground, whether both are static or in motion. In contrast, the Finnish directional adpositions edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) solely describe the location of a moving Figure in relation to a moving Ground (Nikanne, 2003). When using directional adpositions, a frame of reference must be assumed for interpreting the meaning of directional adpositions. For example, the meaning of to the left of in English can be based on a relative (speaker or listener based) reference frame or an intrinsic (object based) reference frame (Levinson, 1996). When a Figure and a Ground are both in motion, it is possible for a Figure to be described as being behind or in front of the Ground, even if neither have intrinsic features. As shown by Walker (in preparation), there are good reasons to assume that in the latter case a motion based reference frame is involved. This means that if Finnish speakers would use edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) more frequently in situations where both the Figure and Ground are in motion, a difference in reference frame use between Finnish on one hand and English and Swedish on the other could be expected. We asked native English, Swedish and Finnish speakers’ to select adpositions from a language specific list to describe the location of a Figure relative to a Ground when both were shown to be moving on a computer screen. We were interested in any differences between Finnish, English and Swedish speakers. All languages showed a predominant use of directional spatial adpositions referring to the lexical concepts TO THE LEFT OF, TO THE RIGHT OF, ABOVE and BELOW. There were no differences between the languages in directional adpositions use or reference frame use, including reference frame use based on motion. We conclude that despite differences in the grammars of the languages involved, and potential differences in reference frame system use, the three languages investigated encode Figure location in relation to Ground location in a similar way when both are in motion. Levinson, S. C. (1996). Frames of reference and Molyneux’s question: Crosslingiuistic evidence. In P. Bloom, M.A. Peterson, L. Nadel & M.F. Garrett (Eds.) Language and Space (pp.109-170). Massachusetts: MIT Press. Nikanne, U. (2003). How Finnish postpositions see the axis system. In E. van der Zee & J. Slack (Eds.), Representing direction in language and space. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Walker, C. (in preparation). Motion encoding in language, the use of spatial locatives in a motion context. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Lincoln, Lincoln. United Kingdo

Writing the ethnographic story: Constructing narrative out of narratives

My first childhood memories circle around listening to stories, being intensely interested in people and their storytelling. Having grown up in a German-Silesian refugee family network meant that storytelling was part of the daily life, especially weekends. The old Heimat, now in Poland, behind the iron curtain, was constantly invoked when members of our Silesian family would visit each other for Sunday afternoon coffee and cake sessions. I used to sit on a footstool listening to stories about the town we all came from, stories about the war, grief, hunger, angst, violence. But also just stories about the family, the ones who died, where relatives and friends had ended up after the war, how difficult and humiliating it was to be the unwelcome stranger in the West German town in which I was born. I like stories, I am used to listening and, as a child, I grew into a listener who sat at the margins; a position I am still comfortable with and hence I have a certain feeling of unease with conventional interview situations

The Role of Autoethnography within Anthropology (How Self Narrative is a Useful Research Tool in Social Science)

This thesis explores the potential of Autoethnography in researching and representing social and cultural phenomena with the self as central. Its primary contribution to the extant literature is to provide a robust analysis of literature and texts, which fall broadly under the Autoethnography heading in order to contribute to the conversation of the place of Autoethnography as a reliable, valuable and ultimately necessary research approach within the academy. Autoethnography emerged to address the ‘something missing’ within research through a recognition and appreciation for narrative, both literary and aesthetic, and the emotions and the body as sources of research. The Autoethnographic Mode of Inquiry brings research to life as it supplements, complements, confirms and denies aspects of previous ethnographic research. Autoethnography is also extremely challenging, and thus reflects the trustworthiness of the self as a reliable resource in research and the positive and negative consequences of it. The research and methodology for this thesis combines a robust review and analysis of literature presented by both exponents and detractors of the method. The review and analysis also provide the structure for the thesis, which begins with examining what Autoethnography is, exploring its origins as the Study of One’s Own Culture, to what it has become, a Study of Cultural Phenomena from The Perspective of Personal Experience. Having appraised six texts that could be broadly claimed Autoethnographic, this thesis identified and offers examples of four categories of Autoethnography: The Study of One’s Own Culture; Second Generation Autoethnography (or Ethnic Identity Ethnography); Anthropologists’ Autoethnographies and Self-Reflective Experiential Autoethnography. Contextually, Irish texts are explored to highlight the correspondence between Autoethnography and ethnography and to illustrate how different perspectives focus on distinct issues. Due to the sensitive nature of Autoethnographic topics, and its actors, ethical consequences are also discussed. Additionally, criticism of and resistance to Autoethnography is considered. Finally, Autoethnography the new frontiers of foci for researchers, educators, and academics are outlined. These provide an opportunity to address social issues and concerns previously unspoken but which affect people and society on a daily basis. The thesis concludes by suggesting that Autoethnography, as a self-reflective method, contributes to Contemplative/Existential Anthropology, where Contemplative pedagogy offers an opportunity for researchers and readers to consider their position in life, give it meaning and make it better