FORNEM

Documentation and digital archiving of qualitative, video-based research materia

Overview

FORNEM focuses on use of video for documentation and archiving of cultural historical empirical material. FORNEM is built on a case study into cultural historical research in a post-doc project carried out by Terje Planke from the Institute for Cultural History at the University of Oslo.This case is the ongoing reconstruction of the third Viking boat from the famous Gokstad excavation in Norway. The reconstruction process is documented with digital video and stored in databases assisted by InterMedia Lab. Solutions for easy access between the archived empirical material in databases is part of the design work in FORNEM. As part of the MULTIMO project, the FORNEM researcher investigates the concepts the cultural historical researcher uses for understanding the social configurations, networking and coordinations which have to be done before design negotiations are put into place. The FORNEM project therefore discusses negotiations in activity theory and actor network theory as conceptual frameworks for design processes of research methods, where routines, methods, tools and activities are part of design as a reflexive knowledge producing process.

Aims

FORNEM asks:

What difference does digital technology mean for qualitative research in cultural history?
What differences exist between interface and system design and cultural hisotrical understanding of design in research processes?
How might digital mediate action based research rather than object based research?

Concepts

Digital technologies make it possible to co-ordinate fieldwork documentation and analysis in new and interesting ways. Handheld devices make the researcher's communication with the research objects easier, by way of easier storing and easier access to empirical material in digital form. An immediate reflexive interpretation of the empirical material is made possible by discussing the empirical findings with research objects or by using the digital recordings as analytical tools for participatory reflections on the fieldwork.

Methods

A challenge for FORNEM is the categorisation of action rather than representations of objects and texts. Participatory design methods are central to the project. The reconstruction of the boat focuses on the actions of the reconstruction process trying to reconstruct the knowledge by which the Vikings built their boats as well as reconstructing the shape of the boat. FORNEM assists the researcher working on the Gogstadbat project to use a digital camera and sound equipment for recording and docuumenting from a journalistic angle. IntermediaLab provides negotiated support for the Gokstadbat project in collaboration with the FORNEM researcher in preparing and assisting the Gogstadbat researcher in digitizing and mediating his material. The material in accessible form a site called GogstadbatWeb which is developed in conjunction with interface and communication designers at InterMedia as well as information systems design. The interface is seen not merely as mediation but a part of the articulation of the cultural hsitorical research at the heart of the Gogstadbat project.

FORNEM has developed a database structure that makes it easier for researchers to store and categorize digital empirical material easily searchable and accessable. The material is archived in MPEG, and tagged in AVID in categories that comply with the rules of CIDOC standardized categories for cultural heritage. In addition in terms of multimodal discourse, the Intermedia Lab assists FORNEM in understanding this digitally mediated representation as culturally historically insocribed communication. FORNEM is therefore seen as a part of Intermedia's strategically placed research into digital video and process based research inquiry and its part in bulding multimediated multimodal discourse

Analysis

Participatory design is used as an approach to build the design process on the needs of the designer. This approach is founded in the objective of discussing how qualitative cultural historical research methods changes by use of digital tools for documentation, categorization and analyses. The discussion of the role of digital media for developing reflexive interpretation (Alvesson and Skjooldberg 1994) in qualitative research will be based both on our own research activities and on the observations of the cultural historian in his use of digital tools for documenting, digitizing, categorising and archiving empirical material and reflecting on his own research project. FORNEM analyses the design process in an immediate way by using web blogs as a boundary object for the diverging actors that participate in the project. The blogs will be used as a professional communication tool for the partly distributed researchers that take part in the project. The blog will serve as a research diary and as empirical material for the design process in itself. The analysis of design thus focuses on: routines for recording in the field, digitalization, documentation and archiving. In terms of participatory design the analysis centres on preliminary design processes and on change processes in research.

Outcomes

The FORNEM project intitiated collaboration with Terje Planke into the design, development and mediation of the input to the Gokstadbat website with InteMedia. Framed as the GogstadbatWeb, collaboration will be continued after the completion of FORNEM. This collaboration will further be continued at the research level by Dagny Stuedahl in a post-doc project called RENAME. This is project is funded by the CMC network to which InterMedia also belongs. RENAME also points to the Gokstadbat site supported by InterMedia and demonstrates the need for continuity and co-design as part of the ongoing negotiations between technology and cultural historical research. For the FORNEM researcher, joint publications are central outcomes for FORNEM, both with InterMedia colleagues and with Terje Planke. It is hoped that such collaboration may be extended into RENAME.

Publications

Stuedahl, D. Smørdal, O. and Morrison, A. 2004. 'Articulating knowledge from the Vikings to the digital age'. Future Ground Conference 2004, Melbourne Australia, 17-21 November (to appear in refereed proceedings).

Pierroux, P. and Stuedahl, D. 2004. 'The activity of telling: constructing narratives in museums.' Paper presented at the 3rd Nordic Conference on Cultural and Activity Research. Copenhagen 3-5 September 2004.