Funding tool: Basic research projects
Project-ID: FTI18-011
Project start: 01. Jänner 2020
Project end: will follow
Runtime: 36 months / ongoing
Funding amount: € 199.700,00

Brief summary:

Lower Austria has already taken huge steps as a digital society in terms of available data and efforts to digitize archives. That includes very successful projects based on regional archives and citizen-science efforts like the Topothek. Yet, especially considering history the huge amounts of available data are not relatable nor engaging on their own.
The interdisciplinary basic-research project RegioBioGraph (RBG) develops principles on how local archive data can be made accessible and interesting for a wider public. It aims to investigate novel techniques to convey historiographic narratives using contemporary means of interactive user interfaces that are enriched with data and audio-visual narration. For Lower Austria, consisting of many small and midsized communities and their institutions, RBG opens up new paths to engage history in the digital age. Those principles are adaptable for any kind of exhibition space or local museum that that has access to a digital archiv. RBG follows the assumption most prominently found in the works of Hayden White (2000) that any historiographic effort is also a poetic act, following narrative principles. The project will develop narrative concepts for biographical data based on theory of montage and data-driven storytelling. A proof-of-concept prototype will combine audio-visual narration, information visualization, and user interaction to demonstrate these concepts and allow for a field evaluation in the Lower Austrian local museum of Groß-Enzersdorf.
RegioBioGraph’s main focus lays on biographical information in relation to local communities and historical key events. RBG understands biography as the most fundamental of humanistic and historic narrations (Delory-Momberger, 2009).The project will be grounded on two use cases of different archival settings: Use case 1 works with information about the former Jewish community (israelitische Kultusgemeinde) of the Lower Austrian city of Groß-Enzersdorf.
Use case 2 approaches the topic from an oral history perspective, starting from contemporary biographical narrations collected during the previous project “Über Weiter Leben.” The people interviewed for this project are still available for cooperation and the biographical narration may be further structured and contextualized along their memories.
With its central question focused on the mediation of history RBG is strongly grounded in humanities and the fields of cultural media studies. Yet, employing the theoretical principles derived from the use cases demand an interdisciplinary approach, as technical proficiency and research is also required to conduct the necessary field testing and proof of concept.
RBG will result in a set of guidelines for arranging media and data in order to present biographies in their historic contexts and test them in as a proof of concept. The proof-of-concept prototype will demonstrate a best practice example of digital methods in a local historiographic setting.