A multi-linear digital discourse in theory and practice

16/11/2021, h. 10:00 – 17:00
Politecnico Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 26, Sala Riunioni piano ammezzato, Edificio Carta / Piattaforma Zoom

The Urkesh Global Record and the Four Banks project

Websites have become fully entrenched in current practice, but little critical thought has gone into an analysis of what the nature of a website is. The question is particularly important when considering websites as serving a scholarly purpose. A website should in fact be seen as a valid epistemological locus on a par with, and even more than, established publication channels. But in current practice it falls short of its full potential: it tends to be exclusively informational, as a container for data bases, without developing any argument.

The notion of “digital discourse” is presented as an answer to this problem. We make the most of the digital medium by implementing a multi-linear narrative that integrates data within a discursive argument. In the first place, a website ought to be “written” as a meaningful whole blending different components (parallel narratives and highly categorized data). Only then can it be “read” following the full thread of the digital discourse, as one would a book but with a much higher level of complexity.

Relatori: Maria Agostina Cabiddu, Giorgio Buccellati, Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati, Jonah Lynch, Laerke Recht, Will Raynolds, Paolo Paolini, Luca Peyronel, Lucio Milano, Federico Buccellati

Responsabili: Maria Agostina Cabiddu, Danila Iacovelli