This presentation canvasses three interrelated components of Humanities research practice that (re)define infrastructure in the context of the Digital Studio at the University of Melbourne: a practice-based epistemology manifested through critical assemblages of resources, architecturally inflected interdisciplinarity organised around transparency and fluidity, and a connected intelligence approach to empowering sustainable inter-institutional knowledge creation. It considers the role of experimentation, and the alliances that are formed in the process of proto-typing as the epistemic conditions for research in the twenty-first century humanities. It also considers an ethics of durability and flexibility of digital research labs over the past 18 months, in which Universities have experienced what might be called ‘the infrastructural swerve.’ In this unprecedented reformulation of many labs, researchers, teachers, and students have been dispersed and disconnected, throwing into question our reliance on physical space and resources. Finally, the presentation considers the philosophy of place as a constitutive element of the future digital humanities lab. Specifically, place as unique to the human perspective and the values, meaning and diverse cognitive systems that researchers bring to place.

Presentation by Tyne Daile Sumner as part of the Digital Humanities Laboratories: Communities of/in practice Roundtable at Ka Renarena Te Taukaea/Creating Communities, Australasian Association for Digital Humanities Conference, Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha/University of Canterbury, Aotearoa New Zealand, 22-25 November 2021