BookPDF Available

The Phenomenology of Real and Virtual Places

Authors:

Abstract and Figures

This collection of essays explores the history, implications, and usefulness of phenomenology for the study of real and virtual places. While the influence of phenomenology on architecture and urban design has been widely acknowledged, its effect on the design of virtual places and environments has yet to be exposed to critical reflection. These essays from philosophers, cultural geographers, designers, architects, and archaeologists advance the connection between phenomenology and the study of place. The book features historical interpretations on this topic, as well as context-specific and place-centric applications that will appeal to a wide range of scholars across disciplinary boundaries. The ultimate aim of this book is to provide more helpful and precise definitions of phenomenology that shed light on its growth as a philosophical framework and on its development in other disciplines concerned with the experience of place.
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
... Millions of teachers and students are facing great challenges in dealing with both the lack of face-to-face interactions in traditional pedagogical spaces and the compulsive implementation of old and new digital education platforms (Decuypere et al. 2021). Thus, the pandemic has accelerated ongoing processes of digitalization, consolidating a prior understanding of the digital as identical to the virtual or as its most apparent expression (Champion 2019;Grimshaw 2014;Nardi 2015;Ollinaho 2018). Within these processes, little room is left for critical reflections on the relationships between corporeality, virtuality and digitality. ...
... However, this difference does not mean that the experience of the virtual classroom is the experience of something inauthentic or less real. Rather, the virtual classroom can be regarded as a virtual place that demands specific ways of involvement, engagement and attachment (Champion 2019;Relph 2007). Certain experiences and practices in the virtual classroom can develop a specific sense of place that is not so much based on sharing a physical space, but on sharing a feeling of 'being there' and 'being together' involved in both individual and collective activities (Lehman and Conceiçao 2010;Osler 2020). ...
Article
Full-text available
In a context of pervasive digitalization of the social world, both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, the field of education has undergone major changes with the development of digital practices and settings. However, the physical presence of the subjects and the body remain something primordial and irreplaceable in traditional educational processes. Thus, it is often assumed that virtuality is opposed to the corporeal reality of the subjects involved in teaching, learning and studying. In this paper we aim to critically challenge this assumption by addressing the phenomenon of virtuality in a more original sense: as a fundamental dimension of corporeality itself. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological insights, we argue that the experience of the virtual is inherently embodied and fully real. We understand corporeality and virtuality as entangled and multidimensional phenomena. At the same time, this leads us to rethink the digital as only one possible medium in which virtuality can appear as inherent to embodied experience. We develop our phenomenological approach in three instances. First, we question and bracket two common assumptions about corporeality. From our critical perspective, assumptions about a disembodied digitality and a devirtualized corporeality represent extremes within which educational discourses currently move. Second, we address the inherent virtuality of embodied experience. We outline the heuristic concept of the virtual body (Merleau-Ponty) to describe corporeality and virtuality as entangled and multidimensional phenomena that encompass extension, intercorporeality and intermediality. Finally, we make some remarks on the relationships of corporeality and virtuality considering the challenges of digital education.
... Fokus penelitian ini adalah ruang nyata yang dipahami dan dilihat melalui media internet dan tidak ada hubungannya dengan 'dunia kedua'. Di era kehidupan maya, secara teoritis ada pemahaman konfrontasi tentang penampilan dan tempat yang erat kaitannya dengan fenomenologi (Malcolm, 2018). ...
... Mengalami ruang hampir tidak mungkin tanpa membayangkan kaitannya dengan tatanan lanskap sekitarnya yang mengarah pada fenomena ruang (Relph, 2019). Secara eksplisit fenomenologi memiliki hubungan yang kuat dengan tempat dalam hal topologi/topografi atau kenampakan ruang (Malcolm, 2018). Faktor penting lain yang disoroti Malcom adalah keberadaan waktu dalam ruang selain penampilan. ...
Article
Full-text available
Kondisi pandemi corona membuat sebagian besar dari kita beradaptasi dengan kebiasaan baru. Keterbatasan untuk menuju berbagai tempat wisata secara fisik, membuat alternatif objek wisata bermunculan. Salah satunya adalah wisata virtual, sebuah media digital yang diatur sedemikian rupa agar dapat memberikan pengalaman maupun sensasi akan sebuah ruang wisata. Salah satu objek yang paling banyak dikonversi ke dalam media digital adalah museum. Media yang digunakan juga beragam, tidak hanya sebatas foto foto tidak bergerak, namun ada video, bahkan tur virtual yang interaktif. Tur interaktif ini dinavigasikan oleh perangkat digital, sehingga pengunjung bisa merasakan sensasi ruang berjalan jalan layaknya berada pada bangunan fisik. Studi ini ingin mempelajari apakah tur virtual bisa menggantikan keseluruhan sensasi indera manusia, walaupun sebenarnya yang dominan adalah indera penglihatan. Ada anggapan bahwa sensasi kadang terbentuk dari memori dan persepsi yang sudah dimiliki oleh masing masing orang sebelumnya, tidak hanya sebatas rangsangan langsung pada masing masing indera.
... The final aim is the achievement of a so called "simulation slice" of that very specific context/ object, which is the actual aspect of that context/object in a given period of time [4]. In the context of scientific visualisation, the main challenge is the achievement of a good balance between the accurate representation of scientific data (computed or stored in databases) and the visual quality of the virtual experience itself [5][6][7][8][9]. Traditional scientific software relies on custom tools meant to be used on conventional terminals or software developed with mouse and keyboard in mind. ...
Article
Full-text available
In the field of digital humanities, it is increasingly necessary to develop and validate virtual reality tools that are capable of combining various scientific data in a virtualized context providing also access and user friendly consultation of online repositories. This paper reports the main aspects of the implementation of a virtual reality tool integrated with an online repository for storing 3D models, metadata and chemical analyses related to different sectors of digital humanities. The virtual reality software, developed for the Oculus Quest 2 hardware, is called PROTEUS and allows for seamless transition from the macroscopic world of digital humanities to the microscopic world of molecular sciences. The paper illustrates, by means of some case studies, the performances of this innovative tool that permits the researcher to understand and manipulate objects, to test hypotheses and to seek meaningful results, visualising the metadata while changing the parameters of the simulation in a dynamic and interactive way. This represents also a significant step forward in the democratisation of science, thanks to an user-friendly and immersive access to advanced scientific algorithms, which allow the natural perception of structural and topological features of the underlying molecular and supra-molecular systems. Graphical Abstract
... The current state of the art in cultural heritage and new technologies learning in university syllabuses is undermined and new learning management approaches that combine blended programs (in a classroom and from distance) benefits the self-efficacy of students [1]. The various tools used to study material culture and interpret the data and the results derive from the disciplines of information technology, geodesy, GIS, 3D, and virtual reality [2][3][4][5]. ...
Article
Full-text available
The cyber archaeometry concerns a new virtual ontology in the environment of cultural heritage and archaeology. The present study concerns a first pivot endeavor of a virtual polarized light microscopy (VPLM) for archaeometric learning, made from digital tools, tackling the theory of mineral identification in archaeological materials, an important aspect in characterization, provenance, and ancient technology. This endeavor introduces the range of IT computational methods and instrumentation techniques available to the study of cultural heritage and archaeology of apprentices, educators, and specialists. Use is made of virtual and immersive reality, 3D, virtual environment, massively multiplayer online processes, and gamification. The VPLM simulation is made with the use of Avatar in the time-space frame of the laboratory with navigation, exploration, control the learning outcomes in connection to the archaeometric multisystem work. The students evidently learned to operate the VPLM following operations made via visual and home-made scripting, gaining experience in synergy, teamwork, and understanding. The resulting meaningful effects of the cyber-archaeometry with virtual operations and virtual hands, texts, and video equip students especially for e-learning with the required basic knowledge of mineralogical examination, which help to understand and evaluate mineral identification from material culture and provides readiness and capacity, which may be refined in a real polarized light microscopy (PLM) environment.
Article
Full-text available
The sustainable breadth of architectural identity is a remarkable phenomenon with many dimensions. These dimensions are melded together to produce an architectural form. Form as the final architectural product is shaped by the visual cues that produce symbols as a powerful tool in identifying a specific architectural trend. This study aims to construct a theoretical framework for the permanence of local identities to answer the main assumption, which is the following: Can identity be measured? It endeavors to clarify the main effective parameters that affect the permanency of architectural identity. It assesses the measurement variables of architectural identity based on multiple architectural perspectives and different points of view. The methodology of this study contains two broad approaches: a checklist and a questionnaire. The results provide a new model that includes three significant poles of architectural identity (mental images, originality, and building regulation). The findings enhanced the sustainability concept of architectural identity, which forecasts the permanency of architectural identity.
Article
Full-text available
The principle of immersion has been a key factor in the success of many visual attractions since the 19th century, such as the cinema, reaching a new dimension with virtual reality devices for the general public. It is especially because it allows for interaction with the simulated environment, and the powerful sense of reality created by its device, that this technology is used in museum contexts. In addition to the perspectives that its use opens in terms of conservation, its ability to transport the visitor elsewhere and into another time invites us to question its geographicity: does its immersive effect come from an "organizing valence of the space"? Or is it only a simple special effect, as spectacular as it may be? This article aims to identify the modalities of "spectatorial" appropriation of this technology in a heritage context, based on an ethnographic study conducted at a virtual reality installation presented at the Museum of Art and History in Geneva (MAH). It proposes a theoretical framework for the hypothesis of an immersive and instrumented geographicity regime.
Article
Full-text available
Beberapa diskusi kekinian tentang realitas ruang virtual menunjukkan bahwa ruang virtual dapat memediasi kehadiran antarsubjek dan menciptakan relasi yang bermakna. Artikel ini hendak menguji realisasi gagasan ini pada sebuah ruang komunikasi virtual bernama Clubhouse yang sempat marak menjadi perbincangan. Clubhouse merupakan aplikasi media sosial yang memungkinkan pengguna untuk terkoneksi secara langsung hanya melalui medium suara serta tanpa teks, gambar, foto, atau video. Awalnya, Clubhouse dibuka hanya untuk pengguna yang memiliki akses undangan dari pengguna sebelumnya. Akan tetapi, belakangan aplikasi ini dapat diakses secara bebas oleh seluruh pengguna internet tanpa undangan. Jika aplikasi Clubhouse dibaca sebagai sebuah “teks kultural,” akan ditemukan nilai-nilai yang bersinggungan dengan nilai-nilai Injil, yaitu tentang eksklusivitas dan inklusivitas, serta unsur memberi diri dalam sebuah relasi. Melaluipembacaan ini, Clubhouse dinilai dapat dijadikan salah satu alternatif ruang menjalin relasi, jika penggunaannya diimbangi dengan penciptaan konteks atau kondisi yang memastikan pengguna menyadari dan mengupayakan kesengajaan akan keberadaan dirinya; serta mengoptimalkan pemenuhan gambaran mental melalui ragam jejak kehadiran.
Article
Full-text available
The 21st century has brought fundamental changes in the development of cities, with the spread of ICT and the rise of digitalization. The new technologies are increasingly making their mark on urban planning and policy as well. The question of how contemporary urban planning is adapting to new challenges is particularly relevant as neighborhoods built in previous centuries and decades by traditional planning methods are now increasingly confronted with new public andenvironmental demands. Despite the bad reputation of Budapest’s 8th district, Józsefváros, based on the socio‐economic and urban problems it has continuously faced in the past, the neighborhood has become one of the most dynamically developing urban areas in the last decade. From a planning point of view, an exciting area of the district is Szigony Street and its wider surroundings due to the strongly fragmented, heterogeneous urban fabric. Nevertheless, the only high‐rise mass housing estate built in Budapest’s historic inner city in the 1960s and 1970s is located there. Our research used a complex methodology (document, content and database analysis, fieldwork, surveys with professionals, and interviews) to explore the planning history of the area’s development. Ultimately, the aim was to identify the most important outcomes and consequences of traditional and contemporary planning and design and whether modern digital planning can make a meaningful contribution to the development of the neighborhood. Our results show that urban planning and development in Budapest are still essentially based on traditional top‐down approaches. Digitalization has a role to play primarily in visualization and contextualization but digitalizing of planning alone will not solve problems and past planning mistakes that affect the urban fabric of a neighborhood.
Book
Full-text available
Unser Alltag ist von technisch erzeugter Virtualität nicht nur geprägt - er wird in vielen Bereichen durch sie bestimmt. Die Informationsgesellschaft pflegt einen selbstverständlichen Umgang mit sich immer weiter entwickelnden technischen Geräten. Als Schein oder Unwirklichkeit konnotiert, bleiben die neuen Phänomene der Virtualität dabei jedoch weitgehend unreflektiert. Tobias Holischkas phänomenologische Analyse zeigt, dass insbesondere der virtuelle Ort als versammelndes Prinzip eine Realität schafft, die - ganz im Gegensatz zum abstrakten Konzept des Cyberspace - eine ontologische Verbindung zur menschlichen Alltagswelt herstellt und sie auf diese Weise erweitert.
Article
Full-text available
This article discusses the postdigital as a term that can be used to describe either a contemporary disenchantment with digital information systems and media gadgets, or a period in which our fascination with these systems and gadgets has become historical. After Edward Snowden’s disclosures of the NSA’s all-pervasive digital surveillance systems, this disenchantment has quickly grown from a niche ‘hipster’ phenomenon to a mainstream position — one which is likely to have a serious impact on all cultural and business practices based on networked electronic devices and Internet services.
Chapter
There are few issues more urgently in need of intelligent analysis both in the UK and elsewhere than those relating to displacement, asylum, and migration. In this volume, based on the 2004 Oxford Amnesty Lectures, major figures in philosophy, political science, law, psychoanalysis, sociology, and literature address the challenges that displacement, asylum, and migration pose to our notions of human rights. Each lecture is accompanied by a critical response from another leading thinker in the field. The volume contains lectures by Slavoj Zizek, Bhikhu Parekh, Ali A.Mazrui, Matthew J. Gibney, Saskia Sassen, Harold Hongju Koh, Caryl Phillips, and Jacqueline Rose, with critical responses from Michael Ignatieff, Seyla Benhabib, Iftikhar Malik, Melissa Lane, Christian Joppke, Rey Koslowski, Elleke Boehmer, and Ali Abunimah. This is the twelfth volume of Oxford Amnesty Lectures to be published since 1992. ‘All good citizens should probably want to buy them … simply because they are published in support of such a good cause. It turns out, though, that no self-sacrifice is involved. [These] are immensely rich, challenging, stimulating volumes … The contributors’ lists are star-studded … and each book has a clear, coherent, overarching theme, despite the extreme diversity of the individual lectures’ (The Independent, April 10, 2003).
Book
This topical new book offers an authoritative analysis of forced migration in the age of globalization. It explores histories of migration, the changing patterns of migration and the refugee experience of displacement, flight and the search for asylum. Critical reading for all students seeking to understand the position of refugees today.
Book
An argument that as we engage with social media on our digital devices we receive, modify, intensify, and transmit moods. We are active with our mobile devices; we play games, watch films, listen to music, check social media, and tap screens and keyboards while we are on the move. In Mood and Mobility, Richard Coyne argues that not only do we communicate, process information, and entertain ourselves through devices and social media; we also receive, modify, intensify, and transmit moods. Designers, practitioners, educators, researchers, and users should pay more attention to the moods created around our smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Drawing on research from a range of disciplines, including experimental psychology, phenomenology, cultural theory, and architecture, Coyne shows that users of social media are not simply passive receivers of moods; they are complicit in making moods. Devoting each chapter to a particular mood—from curiosity and pleasure to anxiety and melancholy—Coyne shows that devices and technologies do affect people's moods, although not always directly. He shows that mood effects are transitional; different moods suit different occasions, and derive character from emotional shifts. Furthermore, moods are active; we enlist all the resources of human sociability to create moods. And finally, the discourse about mood is deeply reflexive; in a kind of meta-moodiness, we talk about our moods and have feelings about them. Mood, in Coyne's distinctive telling, provides a new way to look at the ever-changing world of ubiquitous digital technologies.