Exploring Digital Epistemologies
Inspired by the creative and exploratory thinking of Jonas Ingvarsson, the Linnaeus Media Observatory (LiMO) and the Linnaeus University Center for Intermedial and Multimodal Studies (IMS) hosted a workshop to engage with his ideas on shifting knowledge regimes in the digital age.
Originally planned as a visit by Jonas Ingvarsson to Växjö in May 2025, the event on the 22 October became a tribute to his legacy.
A group of 25 researchers but also practicing artists and journalists joined the onsite and online, among them many friends and colleagues of Jonas Ingvarsson, others attracted by the call for papers.
– In our times when the information space is threatened to be flooded and manipulated by Ai-generated synthetic media, it is even more important to reflect upon what digital information means to us and how we can understand it better. It is here Ingvarsson’s ideas on digital epistemology develop their productive potential, explains Andreas Jahrehorn Önnerfors.
The workshop explored the digital transformations through Jonas Ingvarsson’s lens. In Towards a Digital Epistemology: Aesthetics and Modes of Thought in Early Modernity and the Present Age. (2021), he draws attention to a shift in evaluating and ordering knowledge. This shift, for instance, emphasizes relationships over causality, invention over interpretation, and highlights materiality. The characteristics of digital epistemology is not restricted to the use of digital technology but connects the digital age with Early Modernity. Thus, Wunderkammer or emblems can offer a new perspective to online navigation and memes and digital processes invite us to revisit the printed book as another form of operational machine.
Centring the day around one key work proved to be a valuable way to open up diverse perspectives. Contributions ranged from presentations on digital methods for historical materials to performative bookbinding, personal reflections, and theoretical applications to digital networked communication.
- It was fascinating to see how Jonas Ingvarsson’s concepts help us describe the fluidity of digital communication, said Beate Schirrmacher. It felt very meaningful to commemorate Jonas by testing his concepts and arranging an event that Jonas would have loved to join.