FrontierMap at Hyperdigital Designs Workshop at Cambridge Digital Humanities

Cambridge Digital Humanities, University of Cambridge

As part of its ongoing work at the intersection of interdisciplinary research, AI, and innovative learning systems, JOPRO was pleased to be represented at the recent Hyperdigital Designs Workshop, hosted by Cambridge Digital Humanities and co-sponsored by the William Temple Foundation, and supported in part by the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute.

This event convened researchers, practitioners, and artists exploring new paradigms of engagement with digital technologies, speculative design, and the ethics of emergent systems. Co-chaired by the Director of Plot Twisters, Jenny Liu Zhang, who presented on “Designing Twisterland: An online game nurturing agency through self-reflection,” the event took place on 14 June, 2023.

Jesse Parent delivered a talk, on behalf of project partner Dr. Bradly Alicea of Orthogonal Research and Education Lab (OREL), on FrontierMap: an evolving research and educational tool under development within JOPRO and part of the Epistemological Directories Research Focus at OREL. His presentation introduced FrontierMap as a framework for advancing contextual, developmental, and trajectory-aware learning — particularly in interdisciplinary and “undisciplinary” environments where traditional epistemic boundaries are often insufficient.

Presentation: “Landscapes and Learning Objectives: FrontierMap and the Challenges of Imbuing Contextual Nuance into Research Practices”

Drawing on both theoretical and applied strands, the presentation examined how researchers and emerging innovators can better navigate complex knowledge landscapes. It outlined FrontierMap’s aim to scaffold learners’ understanding by mapping historical lineages, key debates, influential figures, and emerging trajectories within a given field — integrating these into an AI-augmented process to support strategic sensemaking, narrative construction, and future-oriented decision-making.

The session also connected the FrontierMap concept to broader questions posed by the conference around how digital humanities can inform our approaches to complexity, participation, and the future of knowledge work. By contributing these perspectives, JOPRO continues to foster critical dialogue and practical frameworks to support the next generation of interdisciplinary scholars, technologists, and changemakers.

More information: Hyperdigital Designs Workshop

“Digital technologies have become a deeply integrated aspect of our lives. From speaking to friends and ordering food to finding our way around, all our daily acts are now mediated by the digital. This deep integration promises to expand our agency, yet it also shapes and constrains it in ways that we may not recognise or welcome. Increasingly, we are confronted with a dilemma: either to withdraw from or engage with the use of digital technologies, as these often tend to disperse our attention and hinder our self-awareness. In the space of possibilities between anti-technological suspicions and anti-human desires for assimilation, we aim to critically reflect on the creative origins and free use of the cybernetic grammar of digital computers.

The ‘Hyperdigital Designs’ workshop, taking place at the University of Cambridge, will explore creative reflections upon the grammar of digital computers. Building upon the collaborative ‘How to Play with Fire’ project that began at the 2022 Diverse Intelligence Summer Institute, the ‘Hyperdigital’ announces a higher reflection on the creation and use of digital media for human freedom. Beyond the fixed opposition between the Postdigital and the Digital, the Hyperdigital exceeds so as more radically to enter and accelerate the free use of the digital — whether among the creators of digital systems, or from the oldest creator of the idea of the digital itself.”

Hosted by Cambridge Digital Humanities and co-sponsored by the William Temple Foundation, and supported in part by the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute.