IN-PERSON: Prague – Section B

Abstract

This paper discusses several key findings that speak to the conference theme of Community, Heritage and Identity: Intangible Cultural Heritage and the forces of Globalization. The effects of globalisation is data-driven but data has another dimension shaped by dynamic form (Robbins, 2004; 2014): that mysterious quality in the built environment that now appears to be missing from “visible usefulness” (Havel, 2010). In this article, we unpack, in a theoretical exploration, some strategies to uncover the world of experience—as data. Through a methodology underpinned by Bergson, Robbins, and Gibson, we seek relief from pseudo-experience. We will be addressing the absence in everyday life of an understanding of the importance of temporal meaning in objects, that is, of meaning — not as a function of space — but of time. Because heritage serves as a link into an intangible located in the domain of temporal metaphysics, one that can shift the way we think about our built environment. Firstly, we discuss Bergson’s concept of qualitative multiplicity. Secondly, we analyse the use a person sees and how they feel about that use. And lastly, we consider how data may best represent a person’s experience of direct-environment and memory-environment. We also discuss how a preoccupation with comparatively few iconic exemplars of heritage, limits our participation in preservation efforts. For if we wish to rekindle our relationship with the intangible and unify object with experience, then we need to look no further than Bergson’s 1896 theory of qualitative multiplicity to discover the extraordinary in the ordinary.