We’re excited to announce the launch of two books by members of CODAH. We’d like to invite all members of the Centre (and all others interested in these works) to a book launch event at 4pm on Wednesday 15th March, in Room 104, Digital Technium Building.
Reconfiguring the Museum: The Politics of Digital Display by Ana-Maria Herman is an engaging behind-the-scenes study on the role digital media play in museum and urban transformation – and their politics. Digital media technologies have provided an occasion not only for novel ways to display and exhibit collections but also for new politics to arise as museums and urban settings change. While some believe these changes are driven by humans, others see digital media technologies at the heart of these changes. Reconfiguring the Museum offers a third explanation that considers both the social and technical together and thereby captures the experimental nature of introducing novel digital media technologies to museums, and the uncertainty, messiness, contingency, and complexity involved.
From Microverse to Metaverse: Modelling the Future through Today’s Virtual Worlds by Leighton Evans, Jordan Frith and Mike Saker is an examination of the forthcoming ‘metaverse’ through an analysis of contemporary virtual worlds that illustrate the possibilities and issues forthcoming as we hurtle into the XR-driven future. The book examines the place attachments, world-feeling and issues with of several “microverses” to assess the possibilities of the metaverse as a realistic proposition. Critically analysing the phenomenological feeling of place, the political economy of emerging tech, the mechanisms of identity and self along with the behavioural constraints involved, the authors map what a metaverse might be like, whether it can happen, and just why some companies seem so determined to make it happen.
We hope you will join us to celebrate the launch of these two essential books. Please register for the launch event here.