Virtual Archive Research Articles

Neuroimaging Findings during Immune Effector Cell Associated Neurotoxicity Syndrome (ICANS) - a CAR T Cell Neurotoxicity Imaging Virtual Archive (CARNIVAL) Study

Neuroimaging Findings during Immune Effector Cell Associated Neurotoxicity Syndrome (ICANS) - a CAR T Cell Neurotoxicity Imaging Virtual Archive (CARNIVAL) Study

UKRAINIAN POSTCOLONIAL NOVEL AS A NATIONAL NARRATIVE: “THE MUSEUM OF ABANDONED SECRETS” BY O. ZABUZHKO AND “THE BEECH LAND” BY M. MATIOS

The article examines the seminal novels of Ukrainian women writers from the first and second decades of the 21st century, namely “The Museum of Abandoned Secrets” (“Музей покинутих секретів”, 2009) by O. Zabuzhko and “The Beech Land” (“Букова земля”, 2019) by M. Matios. The selected works are analyzed through the lens of postcolonial criticism, that is, from the point of view of the historical experience of the statelessness of the Ukrainian community and its reflection in literary texts. The main attention is paid to the narrative features of the works, namely the tendency to broad narrative, integrity, and narrative completeness. The purpose of the study is to highlight the postcolonial content of the narrative strategies implemented in the selected novels by O. Zabuzhko and M. Matios. Given that “The Museum of Abandoned Secrets” and “The Beech Land” represent different periods and ideological and aesthetic paradigms, namely postmodernism and metamodernism, one of the tasks of the study is to assert the relevance of postcolonialism in the context of metamodernism. The article aims to highlight the peculiarities of the artistic realization of “postcolonial” narrativity in postmodern and metamodern texts. Additionally, the narrative features of the selected novels are compared. The stated purpose necessitates the application of hermeneutic (interpretation of a literary text), comparative (identification of common and distinctive features of the selected works) methods, as well as the method of structural analysis (examining the narrative structure of the texts). As a result of the study, it is established that postcolonialism, inherent in Ukrainian postmodern prose, remains relevant in the second decade of the twenty-first century. The postcolonial orientation of the novels “The Museum of Abandoned Secrets” and “The Beech Land” is manifested in their intention to affirm the continuity of Ukrainian history by building a panoramic narrative that covers different historical periods and establishes a hereditary connection between them. The study identified the following features common to both novels: the intertwining of family genealogy with national history; the development of narratives at different generational levels – children, parents, grandparents, etc.; the theme of the perpetual war for independence that continues to this day; the image of God as a transcendent guardian of history, capable of seeing the intertwining of human destinies in their entirety. The defining theme shared by both novels is the anti-colonial struggle, particularly the military campaign of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. This theme necessitates depicting the tragic consequences of imperial oppression. In “The Beech Land”, these are devastation and turmoil, fratricide, ruptured familial ties, the destruction of the Bukovynian “utopia”. In “The Museum of Abandoned Secrets”, these repercussions are shown through the lens of postmodern hypertextuality – as “burnt manuscripts”, irretrievably lost archives, fragmented stories. In addition, the selected novels exhibit an inclination to transcend the boundaries of realistic storytelling. Employing the montage technique, “The Museum of Abandoned Secrets” incorporates a mystical discourse of dreams that operates as a parallel reality, recounting events of the past. The oneiric discourse resonates with the image of an endless virtual archive storing memories of everything that has ever happened in the world. In “The Beech Land”, the departure from realistic historiography occurs through metamodern fantastisation, where the historical panorama is framed by the story of the “Heavenly Chancellery” – a celestial archive inhabited by the Creator and the Angels. The appeal to mystical and imaginative discourses is interpreted as a manifestation of postcolonial longing for lost integrity and completeness. The images of endless imaginary repositories of information complement the incompleteness of history, aiding in overcoming its fragmentary nature and opacity.

Framework for the Assessment of Virtual Archival Systems and Provision of Virtual Archival Services for Environmental Sustainability in South Africa

Archival records/resources in electronic and those that only existed in physical formats have been made available to a larger audience and received much more usage as a result of digitization and remote accessibility. Virtual archives can help to reduce the environmental impact of traditional archival practices by storing and sharing information digitally rather than physically. The aim of this paper is to assess and develop a framework for the delivery of a virtual archive system tailored to the needs of both users and archival institutions for the promotion of environmental sustainability especially in developing countries. The qualitative research explained user expectations and perspectives on the provision of a newly established electronic archival system for the provision of virtual archive services at an archival institution in the City of Cape Town. This paper anchored on the Expectation Confirmation Theory proposed the Virtual archival systems expectations and satisfaction (VASES) framework to identify electronic archival system users’ expectations, measure perceived performance of electronic archival systems, and assess confirmation and satisfaction.

Pameran Arsip Virtual pada Lembaga Kearsipan sebagai Upaya Peningkatan Penjangkauan Kearsipan: Studi Kasus di Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia

This research discusses the holding of virtual archives exhibitions as an effort to increase archival outreach at the National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia (ANRI) as an archival institution and relevant to ANRI's function in managing archives (historical value archives). The purpose of this study is to describe the holding of a virtual archives exhibition by ANRI as an effort to increase archival outreach by ANRI. This research uses a qualitative approach with a case study method, data collection is carried out by making observations, interviews, and document analysis. Data gathering of this study was conducted from February 2021 to May 2022. The results of this study show that the holding of a virtual archive exhibition at ANRI as an innovation in archives management supported by policies in regulating the stages of organizing, managing exhibition resources, collaboration and sustainability of virtual archive exhibitions will support efforts to increase archival outreach. The virtual archives exhibition is held in accordance with ANRI's vision and mission in managing archives as a collective memory and national identity by utilizing social media platforms websites, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. With the use of social media in organizing a virtual archive exhibition by ANRI, it can reach a wider range of archives users.

From capture to texture: affective environments for theatre training in virtual reality (VR)

ABSTRACT The notion of ‘pre-expressivity' is central to the field of ‘theatre anthropology', explored by Eugenio Barba and his theatre group Odin Teatret. It refers to the elementary level of the energetic dynamics that render an actor's body scenically ‘alive' and 'present'. In the current study, we explore the potential of immersive technologies and bodily interaction interfaces for supporting the transmission of embodied knowledge. We begin by outlining a critical epistemological framework that calls for new accounts of knowledge distribution. We describe the process of mapping different training strands developed by Odin Teatret's actors, using motion capture technology. Further on, we approach the translation of such embodied practices into data and, consequently, into an immersive experience of archival navigation. In our study, we used audiovisual objects as environmental constraints, what we term as immersive archi-textures, and employ Laban efforts applied to motion capture data analysis as a model for qualifying movement patterns. We will base our writings on a particular experiment, which has captured Odin actress Roberta Carreri’s exercise Six States of Water within the virtual archive. In this exercise, the trainee is called to perform a specific score of actions with different qualities of energy, translated as different states of water.

Affective topologies and virtual tactile experiences in theatre training

My experience as a performer is largely informed by my long-term connection with the Bridge of Winds group, led by Iben Nagel Rasmussen. As a practitioner-researcher however, I am engaged on a new journey, where my embodied knowledge is guiding the construction of a virtual archive for theatre practices. During this process, one of the main issues we are facing is that of renegotiating the sense of touch in virtual spaces. As the refined tactile feedback from my masters has taught me to reconnect with the present continuously; is it possible to create this sense of learning via interactive, virtually designed spaces? While aiming at building an immersive space which one can train in and with, what tactics can we imagine to evoke touch-like experiences of force, weight, pressure, connection and above all, care? Furthermore, can such spaces shift the boundaries of what we might understand as touch? These writings are informed by an experiment which translates Odin actress Roberta Carreri’s workshop Dance of Intentions into a virtual archive. Whilst critically approaching this textural translation process and raising the social-political implications of such translations, I will suggest ways in which designed immersive environments can renegotiate tactile experiences in theatre training.

Utopian Hotline by Kayla Asbell et al

Reviewed by: Utopian Hotline by Kayla Asbell et al Cati Kalinoski UTOPIAN HOTLINE. Created by Kayla Asbell, Denis Butkus, Cinthia Chen, Alex Hawthorn, Michael Littig, Dima Mikhayel Matta, Justin Nestor, Rubén Polendo, Scott Spahr, Corey Sullivan, Monica Sanborn, Isabella Uzcátegui, and Ada Westfall. Directed by Rubén Polendo. Theater Mitu, MITU580, Brooklyn, New York. September 25, 2021. How do you imagine a more perfect future? The recorded phone message asks you to speak your answer to this question after the tone. On the other end of the phone is an implicit guarantee: someone is listening. In their first piece since the start of the pandemic, the Brooklyn-based company Theater Mitu listened and engaged with those collected manifestos of an imagined future. The group used these answers left on their hotline’s voicemail as well as messages from astronauts, astronomers, and middle-school students as wide-ranging source material for their production Utopian Hotline. The process of making this production produced not only the live event and the public hotline, but also an installation, a virtual archive, an album, and a vinyl record. Theater Mitu is asking not only what theatre looks like in our entangled “now” of media connections, overlaps, and documentation, but they are asking how to continue thinking about theatre after the event ends. Click for larger view View full resolution Kayla Asbell in Utopian Hotline. (Photo: Courtesy of Theater Mitu.) Walking into the space, I was instructed to take my shoes off and find a seat on a sprawling pink carpet that framed the performance area and encompassed where the audience sat. The small audience of twelve filed in, found their seats around a set of long white tables that featured sound devices both contemporary and vintage: record players, tape recorders, rotary phones, and reel-to-reel players, alongside a variety of stage microphones and wired headphones. Above the tables were large projection [End Page 372] screens that did double work as a ceiling that made the space feel smaller, closer. When I sat on the ground, I was instructed to put on large black headphones through which the entire soundscape of the piece was experienced. The headphones allowed me an intimate experience with the piece as each voice was channeled directly from microphone to my ear, foregoing even the short trip against the black walls, as if I were able to get closer to the performers through our technological connection. As one performer explained, “I’d like to speak to you directly.” There was no attempt to hide the machinery; the black cables screamed across the pink ground under the tables to each of the spots to which we were guided. At first, I felt isolated in this high-tech bubble of curated sound and felt limited in a seemingly open space by the cable tying me to others. But as the show began, we were asked to look around at our fellow audience members with the same reflection of the pink carpet hitting our faces. After a brief introduction to the rules of the space (no shoes, how to put the headphones on), we were asked to imagine each other’s lives, realities, and futures by “sift[ing] through the contents of your mind—specifically, your dreams” in a ritualistic opening monologue from one of the performers. My isolation faded away as I considered others in my own dream of the future. Soon I found myself bound not only to the performers but to my fellow audience members by the big black cables. It was a mediated closeness in the age of pandemics, but a time that more than any other attempts at closeness in the past two years asked me to look into the future by first looking into the eyes of strangers. I started to look beyond the masks and COVID protocols that we were abiding by and instead see “directly” by listening-with. In the words of one of our performer-guides, I felt the cables had become “a tether to their humanity.” Click for larger view View full resolution A screenshot from the digital experience of Utopian Hotline. (Photo: Author.) Utopian Hotline integrated the recorded messages of the...

The Attempt to Be Here Now: “Storying” Time through a Virtual Audiovisual Archive

This article explores how conceptions of time are visualised and “storied” in the collaborative photography and video project Hemelliggaam or the Attempt to Be Here Now by Cape Town-based artists Tommaso Fiscaletti and Nic Grobler. Hemelliggaam is a digital audiovisual archive of photography and video installations “exploring the existential aspects of the human–environment– astronomy relationship” (https://hemelliggaam.squarespace.com/about). Through analysing a selection of photographs and videos, my investigation attempts to unravel the human–environment–astronomy relationship as it plays out in various narratives in the virtual archive. Combining representations of astronomic sites, such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project in Carnarvon, with fragments of Afrikaans author Jan Rabie’s mid-century sci-fi novels, the archive seeks to visualise the multifaceted complexity of human engagements with time. I argue that Hemelliggaam, as an audiovisual archive that contextualises time through geology, astronomy, mythology, and science fiction, should be recognised as a project visualising the overlapping of different timescales. The article contextualises Hemelliggaam in contemporary discourses of the Anthropocene, specifically Dipesh Chakrabarty’s idea that a critical framing of the topic needs to recognise the differences between human- historical time and geological-planetary time. By examining the “storying” of overlapped timescales, I suggest that an interdisciplinary approach acknowledging the contributions of both the sciences and the humanities to meaning-making is increasingly relevant to our age of planetary crisis.

Creating a Knowledge Graph for Ireland’s Lost History: Knowledge Engineering and Curation in the Beyond 2022 Project

The Beyond 2022 project aims to create a virtual archive by digitally reconstructing and digitizing historical records lost in a catastrophic fire which consumed items in the Public Record Office of Ireland in 1922. The project is developing a knowledge graph (KG) to facilitate information retrieval and discovery over the reconstructed items. The project decided to adopt Semantic Web technologies to support its distributed KG and reasoning. In this article, we present our approach to KG generation and management. We elaborate on how we help historians contribute to the KG (via a suite of spreadsheets) and its ontology. We furthermore demonstrate how we use named graphs to store different versions of factoids and their provenance information and how these are serviced in two different endpoints. Modeling data in this manner allows us to acknowledge that history is, to some extent, subjective and different perspectives can exist in parallel. The construction of the KG is driven by competency questions elicited from subject matter experts within the consortium. We avail of CIDOC-CRM as our KG’s foundation, though we needed to extend this ontology with various qualifiers (types) and relations to support the competency questions. We illustrate how one can explore the KG to gain insights and answer questions. We conclude that CIDOC-CRM provides an adequate, albeit complex, foundation for the KG and that named graphs and Linked Data principles are a suitable mechanism to manage sets of factoids and their provenance.

Contributors

Contributors

Proposed independent organisational structure for memory institutions in Zimbabwe and South Africa

PurposeThe idea of convergence of cultural institutions, especially the libraries, archives and museums (LAMS) to operate as one, has a long theoretical history which unfortunately has not been translated into practice. This subject has been discussed by a number of scholars but the implementation has just remained theoretical with only a few countries practically adopting such an organisational structure. In Africa, this concept of LAMS is yet to gain traction. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is aimed at proposing such LAMS structures for African nations, especially in Zimbabwe and South Africa considering the emergence of community “archives” which have blurred further the distinction between museology, archiving and librarianship. The motivation in advocating for the adoption of LAMS is also driven by the theory behind participatory archives which thrive on the advanced use of internet including social media platforms that can make it possible to have one-stop virtual archive on the cloud that also incorporates museums and libraries.Design/methodology/approachThis is a concept paper which reviewed the literature on national and community archives in Zimbabwe and South Africa which were purposively selected because of their long history in archiving. This was done to come up with a proposed “independent” national heritage organisational structure. “Independent” structure because this paper was based on the assumption that the independence of decision-making in national archival structures in Zimbabwe and South Africa is compromised and biased towards the ethos of political parties’ ruling governments.FindingsProposed integrated framework for community archives into the sustainable national archival system which also incorporates the role that can be played by universities. The framework is likely to be feasible and of benefit in the countries that are struggling to have national mainstream independent archives which are just not paying allegiance to those who are in power.Originality/valueThis study is unique in the sense that it mixes LAMS and the concept of independent archival structure in a regional comparative nature that involves Zimbabwe and South Africa.

“To Turn Over and Over”: The Loss of the Verso in the Virtual Archive

In a recent conversation with colleagues about what we miss most during our exile from the archives, we enumerated the myriad sensory and cerebral pleasures of in-person research: the texture and w...

LEME: Laboratory of Spaces and Memories of Professional and Technological Education of Santa Catarina

This article will address LEME (Laboratory of Spaces and Memories of Professional and Technological Education of Santa Catarina). This laboratory presents itself as a Scientific, Technological and Innovation Research Project (CTI Project), as it aims to identify and map spaces of practices and memories of Professional and Technological Education (EPT) in Santa Catarina, especially in the Federal Institutes and to develop a memorial and virtual archive. Thus, the article will address the proposal of constituting a space for memory and discussion of the EPT, with the intention of not only making available to other researchers and the community materials and documents about the EPT, but also to problematize and understand the vocational density in the mesoregions where they are located in Santa Catarina, Brazil.

Ochrona dziedzictwa ormiańskiego w działaniach Fundacji Kultury i Dziedzictwa Ormian Polskich

Protection of the Armenian heritage in the activitiesof the Foundation for the Culture and Heritage of Polish Armenians
 One of the basic statutory tasks of the Foundation for the Culture andHeritage of Polish Armenians in Warsaw, established in 2006, is to save the materialheritage of Polish Armenians. Its collection, mainly originating from Armenianchurches in the former Eastern Borderlands, consists of a large archive of parishdocuments, record books, parchments, manuscripts, old prints, books, magazines, photographs, icons and liturgical paraments. This resource was moved to Polandwithin its new borders after the end of World War II, thanks to the efforts of priestsand parishioners. The Foundation, in 14 years of its activity, has ordered and inventoriedthese resources. They are made available at the Foundation’s seat, as well asin the Virtual Archive of Polish Armenians and through the public platform www.szukajwarchiwach.pl. From its beginnings, the Foundation has also undertaken thenecessary emergency work on the most endangered objects, and, depending onthe amount of obtained funds, also conducts conservation works.

Protocol for the development of a repository of individual participant data from randomised controlled trials conducted in adult care homes (the Virtual International Care Homes Trials Archive (VICHTA))

BackgroundApproximately 418,000 people live in care homes in the UK, yet accessible, robust data on care home populations and organisation are lacking. This hampers our ability to plan, allocate resources or prevent risk. Large randomised controlled trials (RCTs) conducted in care homes offer a potential solution. The value of detailed data on residents’ demographics, outcomes and contextual information captured in RCTs has yet to be fully realised. Irrespective of the intervention tested, much of the trial data collected overlaps in terms of structured assessments and descriptive information. Given the time and costs required to prospectively collect data in these populations, pooling anonymised RCT data into a structured repository offers benefit; secondary analyses of pooled RCT data can improve understanding of this under-researched population and enhance the future trial design. This protocol describes the creation of a project-specific repository of individual participant data (IPD) from trials conducted in care homes and subsequent expansion into a legacy dataset for wider use, to address the need for accurate, high-quality IPD on this vulnerable population.MethodsInformed by scoping of relevant literature, the principal investigators of RCTs conducted in adult care homes in the UK since 2010 will be invited to contribute trial IPD. Contributing trialists will form a Steering Committee who will oversee data sharing and remain gatekeepers of their own trial’s data. IPD will be cleaned and standardised in consultation with the Steering Committee for accuracy. Planned analyses include a comparison of pooled IPD with point estimates from administrative sources, to assess generalisability of RCT data to the wider care home population. We will also identify key resident characteristics and outcomes from within the trial repository, which will inform the development of a national minimum dataset for care homes. Following project completion, management will migrate to the Virtual Trials Archives, forming a legacy dataset which will be expanded to include international RCTs, and will be accessible to the wider research community for analyses.DiscussionAnalysis of pooled IPD has the potential to inform and direct future practice, research and policy at low cost, enhancing the value of existing data and reducing research waste. We aim to create a permanent archive for care home trial data and welcome the contribution of emerging trial datasets.

Mining the (Virtual) Archive: Navigating Student-Faculty Research During a Pandemic

Mining the (Virtual) Archive: Navigating Student-Faculty Research During a Pandemic

The Palazzo Pubblico in Bologna. Sources for a Government Residence, and its Art and History Museum

Civic government headquarters and museum; more than a building, ‘place’, subject of historical research in a variety of fields. The idea of a virtual archive of documents, images and communicative solutions is exposed, aiming at a global understanding of the historically fragmented sedimentation and the articulated complexity of its parts.

Child Protection Hypothetical Case Studies for a Virtual Archive: Professional Perspectives Versus the Lived Experience and Expertise of Care Leavers in Victoria, Australia

Abstract For children in out-of-home care (OOHC) and adults who experienced OOHC as children, the records compiled by care workers, social workers and other relevant personnel present multiple ongoing problems. The records often embody deeply contested narratives that may include distortions and misinterpretations of facts, judgemental inferences, moralistic attitudes and other problematic aspects that can leave the care leaver at best ill-served and at worst profoundly distressed and traumatised. This article, an auto-ethnographic collaboration between a social work professional and two care leavers, aims to address these issues by constructing a ‘virtual archive’ consisting of several hypothetical records compiled in the style typically employed by caseworkers, which are then critiqued by the care leavers. In each case, the record is found to have significant shortcomings in terms of what is included or omitted, the tone, and implied judgements. The article concludes with a discussion that identifies a number of thematic issues and pitfalls intrinsic to the task of record-keeping in the OOHC context and makes recommendations aimed at achieving inclusive, rights-based processes and procedures in the creation and maintenance of records.

How the Geological Survey of Sweden contributes digital data for sustainable development

Abstract Changes in society coupled with more ambitious environmental goals increase the need to make the benefits of geological knowledge visible. The Geological Survey of Sweden (SGU) is therefore evolving from its historical role as a ‘knowledge bank’ to become part of the integrated flow of public information. Three examples of the ongoing digital transformation, and how this will enable the SGU to contribute digital geological data for sustainable development, are: more automated data collection to monitor drinking water to be able to foresee water shortages; several new non-traditional marine projects, producing new information and recommendations for innovative measures to support Blue Growth, management and planning; an online virtual archive containing new data adding to our understanding of bedrock and mineral deposits, in turn leading to more efficient use of Sweden's mineral resources.

Community archives in the Manuscript Department of the National Library of Russia

Purpose This paper aims to characterize community archives in the common array of the manuscript collection of the National Library of Russia (NLR). The purpose of the paper is to identify the features of organization of the archival system of Russia and the place of community archives in it. The authors intend to characterize the features of origin, history of existence and preservation of archives of public organizations in Russia on the example of the archives of Russian societies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; to spread knowledge about historical communities of Russia and their archival heritage and to discuss the value of community archives and their information potential. Design/methodology/approach The research is based on the traditional methodology of the academic archival studies. At the same time interdisciplinary approach plays a great role in the field of study of community archives. The findings of the study were obtained as a result of the application of methods of historical research and special historical disciplines: archival heuristics, archive studies, source studies and archeography. The data were complemented by documentary analysis, including materials of nine archives, documents concerning acquisition and storage of these archives. Findings As a result of the study of different community archives in the Manuscript Department of the NLR the authors came to the conclusion about poor preservation and diffusion of these archives. It suggests the necessity of developing methods of virtual archive reconstruction. Originality/value This is the first study to date on the community archives in Russia. The first attempt to attribute and classify community archives of the NLR.