16 Buzz Session „Digital Solutions“ @ Cluster Conference 2022
Chair: Anke Schürer-Ries, Alexandra Kuhnke
The mediality of projects that are initiated within the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence reflect the multiplicity of practices and phenomena of culture that occur in vast forms of cultural, social and economic production. These facets are a challenge and an opportunity for Digital Solutions to jointly develop database strategies with researchers to reconfigure African Studies on a data level. Digital Solutions strive to understand particular needs and how best to store, catalogue and render knowledge production. The installation of an action board and an engaging knowledge slam aims at consolidating questions, concerns and ideas that could enhance how we create data that is sustainable and usable for future research, and what characterizes the architecture of a database in the latter sense.
In Bafut, Cameroon, the ngam or anga (earth spider) is the mediator between the past and the future. The ngam is the embodiment of accumulated knowledge and endowed with the ability to communicate with the ancestors and is commissioned by the ngambeman to impart concerns to the king of the ancestors and bring their wisdom back up. In other terms, the act of “consignation”, as Jacques Derrida coined it, or the assemblage of signs and its potential, lies at the core of our approach to how we store, visualise and disseminate knowledge. This occurs in manifold ways across various mediums and includes databases and archives as particular forms of cultural techniques, or the spider silk as we see it. Digital Solutions strives to understand needs of research projects, the knowledge imparted and translate it for wider access and dissemination. As methods of translation deviate and the mediality of our consultations are as varied as the wisdom conveyed by the ngam, we seek to expand our knowledge by inviting questions and comments, thoughts and ideas. We therefore propose the following:
1. Action Board Installation: The creation of a digital action board for a direct and productive exchange between all participants throughout the conference. Here all participants are invited to convey their thoughts, ideas, questions, which will be collected digitally (digital post-its or images, etc.). The action board would be available throughout the conference and be present as both an analogue board and a digital workstation.
> To get access to the action boards, QR-Codes will be created and need to be shared digitally as well as non-digitally. Therefore, a number of QR-Code posters to be installed at the entrance of the conference venue, at the Iwalewahaus in Bayreuth and at the conference venue at Rhodes University.
> A workstation (a place to think, to discuss and to exchange knowledge/experiences) in a suitable lounge space of the conference with coffee/tea facilities (conforming to any Covid restrictions, of course) where participants can contribute directly online or via a QR code to access the site on their phones, or on an analogue board that we would transfer online regularly throughout the conference to have all comments assembled in one place for all
to see.
> It would be good to install a similar workstation in Rhodes, where their participants can access the digital action board directly or through the QR Code.
2. Knowledge Slam: In addition, we propose a moderated ‘knowledge slam’ followed by a short discussion. This should entail lightning presentations in Pecha Kucha of about seven minutes and a short discussion afterwards with regard to research questions or any topics that may have arisen. We would welcome a variety of inputs from the various groups, projects and partners of the cluster, especially from the African Cluster Centres, for example on:
- Databases and digitisation <-> research
- Digital art exhibitions online
- Fluid ontologies
- Disciplines and their needs
- Networks
- Practicalities of creating an archive or database
3. Presentation: To summarise the outcome of the action board and knowledge slam as well as future prospects, we would create a presentation with short videos and the concerns/requests made that could be shown toward the end or after the conference. This will be followed up by a paper summarising the posed questions, suggestions and concerns, and how we can apply this knowledge to future projects and in our databases.
a translation en/fr fr/en is offered
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