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Materiality and Virtuality 2023

Materiality and Virtuality. Entanglements of Material and Virtual Worlds in Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture

International Conference

Interdisciplinary Research Center for the Medieval and Early Modern Period (IZMF)
Institute for Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture (IMAREAL) at the University of Salzburg

Date: 19. – 21. 9. 2023

Venue: Kolpinghaus Campus Krems | Krems/Donau

We seek to specifically understand the mutual interaction between materiality and virtuality, as they do not form an irreconcilable binary opposition; rather, in our view, it is their productive interaction that produces the texture of meanings from which “realities” are made. We assume that people generate culture in ever new processes of negotiation in the interplay of virtuality and materiality. We are particularly interested in the extent of humans’ ability to cope with virtuality, and the degree to which we as humans need points of what is primarily sensory reference and interconnection in and with the material world. We start from the hypothesis that prior to and within what we call the digital age, instances of virtualisation have primarily been practices of materialisation that inscribed sociocultural elements – ideas, narratives and values – into objects. In so doing, they have made the material world accessible to our cognition while simultaneously enabling virtualities to render physical objects into artefacts: cultural things, fabricated in social practices. The conference addresses the manifold entanglements between material and virtual worlds prior to the digital age as well as reflecting on the potential associated with the virtualisation of research data and the various stages of modelling and analysis, particularly the challenges inherent to the digital transformation of material objects.

Please register until 8. September 2023 at the latest via sekretariat.imareal@plus.ac.at

The program is available here.

Conference Programme

19 September

15.00

Opening of the Conference

Christina Antenhofer/Elisabeth Gruber/Alexander Zerfaß, Salzburg

15.15–16.45

Materiality and Virtuality in the History of Knowledge

Chair: Alexander Zerfaß, Salzburg

Virtual Materialities in the History of Substances: Understanding the Emergence of “Modern” Raw Materials between the 18th and 19th Centuries

Sebastian Haumann, Salzburg

Materialität als Potenzialität zur Aufnahme von Form. Die Rolle der Materie im Platonismus der Spätantike

Christian Pietsch, Münster

16.45–17.15 Coffee

17.15–18.45

Visualizing Materiality and Virtuality

Chair: Barbara Denicolò, Salzburg

Virtuality through Materiality. Grave Monuments as a Medial Strategy of Visualizing the Dead on the Example of Klosterneuburg Abbey

Edith Kapeller | Julia Anna Schön, Vienna

Museum Materialities in-between Virtual Objects and Digital Materials

Chiara Zuanni, Graz

19.00

Keynote

Chair: Christina Antenhofer, Salzburg

Cadavers, Dead Bodies, and Human Biomaterials – The Sliding Scale of Human Remains in Mortuary Ritual, Cultural Heritage, and Research Ethics

Liv Nilsson Stutz, Växjö/Sweden

Response

Karin Harrasser, Linz


20 September

9.00–10.30

Sensing Materiality and Virtuality I

Chair: Matthias Däumer, Krems

Virtual Insanity Is What We Are Living in. Attempt at a Systematic Concept of Virtuality (on the Basis of Medieval Afterlife Journeys)

Matthias Däumer, Krems

Durch auflegung des wunter detigen gnaten stein ist mir geholfen wortenPhysical Contact as a Practice of Mediating Salvation Using the Example of the so-called ›Fraisensteine‹ from the Pilgrimage Destination Sonntagberg (Lower Austria)

Thomas Kühtreiber/Sabine Miesgang, Krems

10.30–11.00 Coffee

11.00–12.30

Sensing Materiality and Virtuality II

Chair: Matthias Däumer, Krems

Insights into the Mechanisms of Materiality and Virtuality. Using the Example of the Lucerne Weinmarkt Plays

Heidy Greco-Kaufmann, Bern

Apple Variation. Case Studies from the Latin Middle Ages

Katja Weidner, Vienna

12.30–14.00 Lunch

14.00–16.30

Materiality and Virtuality in Space

Chair: Thomas Kühtreiber, Krems

Built Space and Virtual Space: Remodeling the Historical Rooms of Hohensalzburg from Material and Written Sources

Christina Antenhofer/Walter Brandstätter | Stefan Zedlacher, Salzburg

Inventing a Medieval Liberty in the Landscape: Materiality, Virtuality, and the Liberty of Whitby Strand

Thomas Pickles, Chester

Representing the Absent King? Material Dimensions of Royal Presence in Late Medieval France

Michael Brauer, Salzburg

18.00

Keynote

IMC Piaristengasse

Chair: Elisabeth Gruber, Krems

Materiality and Virtuality, Reconstructing and Exploring the Past Through Objects: Mobility of Objects Across Boundaries 1000–1700

Katherine Wilson, Chester

Reception


21 September

9.00–11.30

Manuscripts between Materiality and Virtuality

Chair: Manfred Kern, Salzburg

The Codex Manesse in TEI format. Towards a Transcription Database for Manuscript C (Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift, cpg 848)

Claudia Maria Kraml | Dominik Nießl, Augsburg

New Imaging Technologies and the Invisible Materiality of the Book

Sean Winslow, Graz

The Fascination for Materiality and the Hiatus between Editorial Practice and Literary Criticism. Some Remarks on the Omnipresence of Virtual Manuscripts

Florian Kragl, Erlangen

11.30–12.30

Conclusion

Christina Antenhofer | Elisabeth Gruber | Alexander Zerfaß, Salzburg