There are a wide array of resources that could be utilized by music historians in order to effectively display and share information. Some of these displays could just share simple facts and information while others could present topics through videos, pictures or maps. The increase of technology and the many assets it provides, allow music historians to easily manage information about a particular topic through an infinite number of possibilities. According to the article, HyperCities: Thick Mapping in the Digital Humanities by Presner/Shepard/Kiwano, they discuss that using the internet as a resource not only helps an individual search a specific subject but also allows that individual to further investigate the topic with the aid of pictures, music clips, videos, maps and much more with Hypercities.
The article first begins by discussing the power of the World Wide Web and comparing it to being “composed of lives” rather than just words on a page (13). The authors are trying to promote the idea that the facts can be brought to life with the application of HyperCities, a non-existent program. They then continue to consider this option as a way of telling stories and display knowledge to others from the past, present, or future.
Thick Mapping is not just the process of a simple map but also narrating and illustrating relations between different types of information. The authors argue that maps “may or may not attempt to reference, reflect, or represent and [what some may think is an] external reality” (15). What mapping does display is the number of perspectives that information can be relayed through. Not all information is going to be completely accurate or correct. In the past, maps had been a way of revealing “accurate” projections and statistical methods of the world beyond Europe, yet what was thought was not the actual reality. Through the advancements of technology such as Global Positioning Satellites (GPS), Digital Mapping and other resources, maps of the world became more and more accurate to the reality. Unfortunately, much of the world is still has yet to be discovered.
On another aspect, the authors believe that although we have these sources, the technology is utilized for utilitarian uses such as simple driving directions or finding out data for an election. They believe that these should be applied to Thick Mapping in order to provide a layered learning experience with information. With this, information can be viewed in a variety of ways and individuals will have the ability to go more in depth of this information. This links to the idea of HyperCities where it is crucial to compile this information via different mediums to illustrate diverse layers of history.
Digital Humanities is another area that raises the idea that information can be digitally presented and analyzed. It reveals the design of combining “computational practices and humanities scholarship” (20). It ties back to HyperCities because this could lead to a dilemma that it is just technological processing but it is about presenting something new that could be utilized for the future. The authors state that the future is still full of possibilities and the only way to discover the “new” is to place ourselves into the ever-changing world.