Knowledge processes and digital media
Knowledge processes and digital media
The Department of Knowledge Processes and Digital Media is based on a unique structure: the professorship was established jointly by the University of Oldenburg and the German Maritime Museum – Leibniz Institute for Maritime History, Bremerhaven (DSM). This also explains its thematic focus: it is about ‘things to do with media’, but at the same time also about ‘things to do with the sea’. And this in two respects:
Firstly, the focus is on the role of (digital) media in the genealogies of ships, maritime infrastructures and oceanographic research. But ships themselves are also understood as media for the production, transmission and storage of knowledge. Its research, spanning from the Early Modern period to the 21st century, involves reflecting on the interconnection between a ‘history of media’ and historically variable ‘media of historiography’. This concerns, for example, the enabling conditions of certain fields of historical research (e.g. universal history, the history of globalisation) and historical narratives (e.g. of discovery, the ‘last frontier’), as well as the significance of media and cultural techniques of time recording and navigation for seafaring and its history. Added to this is an examination of the terms and concepts of ‘material culture’ and ‘object-based research’ in the context of pervasive digitality. This forms the basis for an interdisciplinary research interface that moves beyond an examination of maritime media to encompass socio-political, ecological, and technological and cultural-historical perspectives – and, not least, questions concerning the future – regarding the relationship between humankind and the sea.
Secondly, the professorship for Knowledge Processes and Digital Media addresses the opportunities and challenges posed by comprehensive digitalisation for museum contexts. This includes the integrated implementation of computer-based media to ensure a forward-looking approach to the DSM’s collection, taking into account its preservation, presentation, communication and research. This encompasses not only topics such as three-dimensional object digitisation, research data management and networking within supra-regional, national and international research data infrastructures, but also innovative approaches and ‘dramaturgies’ for collection presentation, the testing and development of virtual exhibition spaces, the systematic engagement with digital audiences, and the development of interactive and accessible educational programmes. Here, too, there are numerous points of connection with the UOL’s teaching curriculum, which are intended to be reflected, for example, in project-based and practical seminars.
With this remit and focus area, the Department of Knowledge Processes and Digital Media has set itself the task of building creative and inspiring bridges between museum-related work and university teaching. It sees itself as a hub for exchange and collaboration across academic disciplinary boundaries and within a regionally outstanding ‘maritime’ and ‘digital’ research landscape. And such research can flourish particularly well within a combination of university and research museum, which creates inspiring spaces for research and the public to come together.