Digital Culture, Umwelt and Aletheia an Ontological Introduction

Abstract

The paper presented here focuses on the idea of interpreting the digital culture as an image of the material culture rather than a mere copy of it. First of all, we should ask ourselves what an image really is; it is in investigating its deep meaning, which is often devalued due to the enormous dissemination of void images, that we can overcome the superficial concept of the digital as a digitalised copy. The description of an archaeological artifact cannot prescind from its physical and material appearance, but has to go further towards its profound nature and meaning. Considering the so-called aura of archaeological and artistic objects as an engagement between the hic et nunc of the object and the hic et nunc of the observer it will be possible to go beyond in the comprehension of the agency of the objects. Moreover, it is necessary to consider technology as a way through which objects could reveal themselves in a process of ἀλήθεια and not just a tool with the only scope of showing itself and its capacities. Considering digital copies as images could yield compelling challenges: every archaeological object, at any scale from the very little to the very big, has its own lost Umwelt: a way of being entangled in the world in which it was created. Probably, no answer will be provided within this paper, but suggestions to move towards an ontology of digital objects and their relationship with virtual realm.