Talk:Venice Time Machine
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Skewed audience
[edit]"The whole project, along with the development of technology it entails, seems to be for a purely Western audience. Both the Venice Time Machine and the subsequent European Time Machine are centered around European history, culture and patrimonial heritage. Nothing has been done so far to include more regions' cultural history (although the project and digital humanities are still in its early stages) but still goes to show that more value is given to European history."
I may have misunderstood this criticism, but find the content of this paragraph surprisingly trivial. Some more in-depth information should be given, especially about why the audience is perceived as purely Western, since the publications are out there. It can be expected that a project called "Venice time machine" is inherently centered on the European city (and former Republic) of Venice and that a project called "Time Machine Europe" would not necessarily include regions outside of Europe, if just for the simple reason of having to limit the amount of data. 8 TB for Venice alone is not a negligible figure. Finally, given the massive number of tourists disembarking in Venice every day in the years preceding the pandemic, a substantial interest in the city and its unique character and history can be inferred. To my knowledge, there is nothing that would substantially hamper a project themed "Baghdad Time Machine", "Timbuktu Time Machine" or "Tokyo/Edo Time Machine" (just to name a few other cities), apart from the number of available archived documents.
Since the criticism acknowledges that digital humanities are still in their early stages, this can also be perceived as its own rebuttal –- one simply has to start (or continue) somewhere. In other words, in order to assemble a puzzle, you need to identify a certain amount of pieces first. It would thus be more appropriate to motivate other research groups to undertake such endeavors instead of criticising a groundbreaking project for being what it is and from which others, no matter where in the world, can learn.
This is my very personal opinion and I'm not involved in this project in any way. If my comment is seen to be beside the point, I'd be happy to read a more detailed explanation of the criticism -- I'm definitely open for discussions :)