In the traditional sense, the word “material” implies something physical or tangible. But scholars such as Walter Benjamin and Marx have extended its meaning to non-physical concepts such as imagination and aura. Today, the increasing sophistication of digital content is beginning to fit the extended definition of “materiality” more so than the traditional sense of the word. The Smithsonian X 3D viewer is an excellent example of how modern digital imagery is able to capture the viewer’s imagination of the historical context of these artifacts by providing a third dimension to a two dimension image.
I found this exhibit to be particularly material not only since I was able to see the artifact (in my case Jamestown Chancel Burial A) in its 360 degrees of glory, but I was also interacting with the artifact on my tablet. While it seems insignificant, spreading your index finger and thumb apart to zoom in or dragging your finger across the screen, made the experience more tactile and made me feel just one level closer to the original artifact.
This experience was drastically different from my previous digital interaction with the online description of George P. Johnson Collection. Through this medium, it was a straightforward job to have a good comprehension of the historical context of the collection, its creator, and the actual contents of the collection as everything is spoon-fed to you through interpreted texts. The transcript of the interview with George P. Johnson came closer to being material since you feel the presence of Johnson through reading his words unfiltered by any scholars. However, overall both lacked the materiality that created the impact that the Smithsonian X 3D viewer had on me. This goes to show how digital materiality is just beginning to emerge as more engaging forms of interacting with content are being created.
However, all three of these experiences pale in comparison to the experience I had with physically handling the George P. Johnson Collection. My group of three was given a folder containing newspaper clippings of desegregation of schools in Los Angeles. This was a very surreal experience for me since newspapers by nature are something of the present/immediate past, but looking at these newspaper clippings – they’ve clearly become artifacts of history. Seeing the yellowing newspaper and gingerly lifting each clipping up, made history feel so fragile and as fleeting as the urgency of the news stories themselves. With each newspaper clipping, my group and I learn a piece/perspective of the desegregation of LA schools and it was up to us to piece together everything we had read to form a complete history/understanding of the situation at the time. This deliberate process of self-discovery added to the materiality of the artifacts since it engaged me in a way that made me not only imagine the history but also feel the aura of the people at the time.
To a certain extent, digital content can replicate this experience. Unfortunately, users currently cannot interact with digital content the same was as I did with the old newspaper clippings and with the search bar readily available at the top, it eliminates some of the deliberate process of self-discovery. However this may not be the case in the near future as virtual reality is becoming more immersive and soon we may be able to truly experience digital materiality.
I appreciated your description of manipulating and altering the viewpoint given in the Smithsonian X 3D viewer, and can affirm that my experience felt equally tactile. I wonder if we can think about digital materiality differently, since the actual digital material is sequences of codes with which we are interacting. Does this feeling of interacting with objects online change when the raw text from the newspaper clippings are the only evidence of such clippings existing? Still, I think you are spot on with the way you felt and learned from the digital tour.