The rapid developments in digital technology have significantly increased the digital representations of cultural heritage and generated a wealth of new, born digital heritage. In tandem, a broad variety of tools, platforms and infrastructures has emerged to find, access, enrich, analyze and visualize digital cultural heritage sources and the information contained in them. In particular, software for creating interactive maps and 3D visualizations facilitate the connection of digital cultural heritage sources to the locations they relate to and support the evocation of past places. As such, these digital platforms allow for spatial and temporal explorations of the local past, offering new opportunities for humanities research.

In this lecture Julia Noordegraaf reflects on the opportunities offered by such spatial and temporal approaches to cultural heritage for understanding the past of urban life via digital research. She will argue that in doing so, we need to adopt a ‘scalable research framework’ that alternates between the macro level of identifying patterns in large datasets, across space and through time, and the micro level of one particular text, image, location, person or event. She will also reflect on the challenges of using digital methods and sources for humanities research, asking which historical ‘truths’ emerge and to what extent these are shaped by digital transformation and processing.