Today, after waking up at various times in the morning and accomplishing a widely varying amount of work, we headed east to the IISG (International Institute of Social History) building, where the Virtual Knowledge Studio is housed, to meet our friend and mentor Professor Paul Wouters. There, we were treated with an introduction to what, exactly, his Virtual Knowledge Studio does.
Indeed, while the name itself isn't terribly definitive, its component parts are more than a fair approximation of their task, along with a number of non-eponymous components. Chief among these is the general field of Humanities research. One favorite definition of the Humanities which Professor Wouters enjoys is that by Cathy N. Davidson and David Theo Goldberg of Duke University and the University of California, respectively:
Meaning concerns interpretation of data, evidence, and texts. Value ranges over the entire field of cultural, aesthetic, social, and scientific investments. Significance, implicating both the former two, raises questions of representation, in the sense of accounting for (explanation) and of capturing, in the sense both of offering a faithful rendition (description) and of making broad claims (generalization).
From the above, it feels natural to glean the essence not merely of an area of research, but rather a process, with many working parts which fit together in a very loosely defined manner. This process of combining the concepts of meaning and value into a singular entity appears to be a core tenet of what it means to research the Humanities -- and the Social Sciences, another defining component of the Virtual Knowledge Studio, is merely an entity within the Humanities.
The Social Sciences are equally hard to define, partially because while rooted in the hard sciences, as denoted in the name, their object of study can stray quite a bit from anything intuitively relatable to "science." However, one of the tenets of the Virtual Knowledge Studio described by Professor Wouters sheds some light onto a concrete definition of the field: the VKS strives to "turn philosophical questions into empirical ones." This sort of description appears to provide a reasonable parallel with the essence of Social Sciences, which may be described as a process by which humans and society, something organic and philosophical, and molded into something resembling the natural sciences, involving extensive experimentation and repeatable results. It's important, though, to note that the term "science" has traditionally not implicated the natural sciences, and both spirits of the term are in fairly common use.
It would appear now that we have at least stumbled our way through some sort of concrete definition of the humanities, and then the social sciences, where the Virtual Knowledge Studio lives, and thus we may begin exploring the essence of what the organization specifically does. From the standpoint of a pragmatic, outcomes-based analysis, the Virtual Knowledge Studio appears to build technological tools that enable other researchers to perform their work with greater efficiency – this would cover the "virtual" component, and touch upon the concept of ICT, which will be discussed in further detail later. However, the story is much deeper than this surface analysis.
changing practices, telling stories, building tools
As is evident from this particular quote detailing the pragmatic goals of the organization, building tools is only the third of three. By also focusing on improving research practices and telling stories to the public, VKS brings another component to the equation: the aspect of knowledge. Not only does the Virtual Knowledge Studio build tools for research organizations and teams, they also study the impacts of these very same tools on the research process, thus furthering the knowledge capabilities both of the subject and of themselves. And, through innovative and interactive means of conveying the research process and results to the public, they tell stories that help further the public's knowledge.
The means by which they accomplish this is, as previously mentioned, through various types of ICT. ICT may be loosely related to the American "IT", or Information Technology, but while IT implies merely the technological infrastructure that enables a preconceived set of communication services such as networking or telecommunications, the European notion of ICT stretches far beyond this. Instead ICT is almost a philosophy that binds the technology – it is the use of technology to communicate, inform, and analyze, not simply the existence of it. This crucial difference in terminology led to several debates, but Professor had a number of core principles that he believes represents ICT, as well as the Virtual Qumran project as an example to back it up.
Essentially, the Virtual Qumran project is a virtual recreation of the Qumran area where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. The project thus aims to be a visualizer for the area, to allow better understanding and study of it; however, it also features a strong simulation component, as all the data put into is bound together in such a fashion that enables factors to be changed and resulting effects to be propagated.
- ICT as a neutral container of information. This approach has a focus on data – collecting, relating, and collating data becomes the key focus behind ICT technology. This already has an advantage over human-powered research: in the Virtual Qumran example, ICT technology enables data from all different fields – epidemiology, geography, and religious studies – to be bound together in a meaningful way that humans would struggle to accomplish.
- ICT as a tool. This approach is the simulation aspect: now that we have the data all intercorrelated, we can put it all to use by experimenting upon the data. What hap
pens to the religious history of the area if we introduce an epidemic of some sort? The tool aspect of ICT thus enables intense analysis of data, including the interpolation and extrapolation of existing data. However, the tool aspect also encompasses public communication – the storytelling aspect. - ICT as a political tool. This the ICT version of How to Win Friends and Influence People. As we put more of ourselves and of our research into these ICT tools, we turn ICT into a powerful political tool, enabling it to be used for propaganda, censorship, or other useful and dangerous means.
As can be seen, the Virtual Knowledge Studio is composed of a vast plethora of loosely connected ideologies, technologies, and methodologies. Putting them together is a delicate act which must be handled with care, not only because it is so difficult to achieve elegantly, but also due to the disruptive nature of their research – they manipulate directly what they intend to study, and then observe the results, thus putting themselves into their own research equation. This leads to my final conclusion that this is all quite an art, thus justifying the use of the word and component of studio in their name.
As a footnote and a look to the future, Professor Wouters' latest project, Research Dreams, connects people via a social tool to help amalgamate potential research projects into larger, more meaningful, and collaborative projects. Check it out!
Following all of this, we departed for a couple of hours before the group dinner at bloem, during which those of us at Prins Hendrikkade found that the power was out.
Dinner itself, however, was a fantastic affair, during which we tied or broke last year's record of length of stay, with a total of nearly four hours in the restaurant's upstairs loft. The food was delicious (and for us, free!), and everyone seemed to have a good time. Here's looking forward to our next one on Wednesday!
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