Description
Speaking about cultural transformation due to technogenic virtuality signals at least an implicit concern about the kind of culture that will emerge from the incorporation of digital virtualisation and immersion in key individual and collective mechanisms of meaning-making. This concern is not just about the here-and-now; it is also about the anthropological trajectories of a people entangled (cf. Hodder 2018) with this (or any) technology. The Virtual represents a modality of human existence in the world, as well as a systematic practice of producing, experiencing, and interpreting life events. This is different from other modalities and practices to such an extent that it warrants questions about long-term existential trajectories. In the past, such entanglements with key technological developments framed the trajectories of a people beyond recognition, as for instance with language, agriculture, or metalworking. What about virtualisation, then?Such questions are typically asked by civilisation studies. The talk positions virtualisation within the interpretative (e.g. Renfrew and Zubrow 1994) and semiotic (Votsis 2023; Votsis forthcoming) study of civilisations, that is, civilisations as symbolic endeavours that encode a stance towards the (natural, experiential, and embodied) world. I discuss the Virtual through the lens of fundamental attributes of civilisations, notably the stance they encapsulate about human-environment interaction and the symbolic systems they develop to encode it. I provide a framework to understand the virtualisation of culture from the perspective of civilisations and the production and change in their sign systems. Having a systematic vocabulary about the symbolic pulse or substratum of a virtualised civilisation is important, because it helps articulate and understand the stances, ideologies, and world-views that frame its journey through time, from its day-to-day sub/counter-cultures and social discourses, all the way to its very survival.
| Period | 9 Dec 2025 |
|---|---|
| Event title | International Symposium and Networking Event on Virtualisation and Culture |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Enschede, NetherlandsShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |
Keywords
- virtuality
- culture
- transformation
- existentialism
- trajectories
- civilisations
- immersion
- digitalisation
- environment
- sign systems
- systems of meaning