Feeling through the screen: memory sites, affective entanglements, and digital materialities

Geography and virtual reality

“…As indicated, this extends beyond an immediate concern with the representational, and includes the broader socio‐spatial relations that enable such encounters. In considering the politics and power of such virtual visual regimes and the work they do requires, as Sumartojo and Graves (2019, p. 7) go onto argue; ‘ […] accounting for the sensory and perceptual alongside the representational, narrative, algorithmic or code‐based aspects of the digital, and interrogating how they work together to shape the ongoing experience of the world’.…”

New geographies of commemoration

“…Since then, a vibrant body of work in geography and beyond focused on the experience of commemoration has emerged, with a growing strand addressing the affective and sensory aspects of official commemorative sites and events. This takes in studies of visits to museums or memorials (Waterton and Dittmer, 2014; Turner and Peters, 2015; Sumartojo and Graves, 2018; Drozdzewski, 2018a; Seal, 2011; McCreanor et al, 2018; Wetherell et al, 2019), the specific affective affordances of digital sensory technologies (Witcomb, 2013; Sumartojo and Graves, 2019; Sear, 2016), and the role of touch and materiality in communicating knowledge of the past (Zhang and Crang, 2016; Freeman et al, 2016). In their book on affective heritage practices, for example, Wetherell, Smith and Campbell (2018: 2) argue that ‘attention to emotion and affect allows us to deepen our understanding of how people develop attachments and commitments to the past, things, beliefs, places, traditions and institutions’.…”