This document discusses the concept of "digi-grasping", which refers to actively making sense of and existing in a world that consists of both the digital and physical. Digi-grasping is not necessarily a conscious process, but involves the bodily experience of interfacing between the digital and physical. Understanding digi-grasping can help empower people to actively participate in an increasingly digitalized world in a way that shapes positive futures. The document provides examples of different ways of existing in the space between the digital and physical, from being just a passive user to an ethical and creative being, and discusses how digi-grasping can inform how we teach digital technologies.

1. VTT TECHNICAL RESEARCH CENTRE OF FINLAND LTD
Grasping the Future of
Digital Society
ITK tutkijatapaaminen 5.4.2017
Tomi Dufva, Aalto University
Mikko Dufva, VTT Oy
mikko.dufva@vtt.fi @mdufva

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Grasping the presentation
Active and empowered participation
in an
increasingly digitalized world
requires
not just rational understanding,
but
embodied understanding
 digi-grasping

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Why is this important?
Knowing how to be
and do in the digital
world is a necessary
societal skill
How we perceive and
experience our digital
world determines
what kinds of futures
we will have in it
Empowered present Shaping futures

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Being in the digital world
Virtual reality
Manipulating digital
objects
Living with digital
technologies

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Digital, digitalization, digitality…
Digital
aspect of a
thing or
technology
Digitized
translated into
a digital form
Digitalization
increasing use
of digital
technologies
Digitality
living in the
digital and
digitized
culture

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Grasping
 Activity that is intentional but not
necessarily conscious
 It is possible to grasp something
before knowing it
 Through the body humans
comprehend not only the
spatiality of position but the
spatiality of the situation
Merleau-Ponty, 2014

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Grasping and being in
the world
 Humans are active bodily beings
 Existing in the world is realized
through making
 Making is not just an activity to
create an object but active
participation and tending of the
world
Heidegger, 1952; Kojonkoski-Rännäli, 1998

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Digi-grasping
Digi-grasping is active (but not necessarily conscious)
sense making and existing in the world
that consists of both digital and ”real”/physical world
 Being and knowing in the space and interface
between digital and physical
Key questions
What is the
bodily
experience of a
digital world?
How do we
“grasp” the
digital world?

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Examples of being in the space between
digital and physical
Bot & artist
drawing together
Making a distinction
between the physical
and digital world
Adnauseam
Raising questions about
the explicated digital
world
I’m getting
arrested
Questioning or
redefining the
relationship between
digital and physical
Platform
cooperatives
Using the digital world
to create change in the
physical world

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Being and doing in the digital world
• Being as given
• Just using things / being the productIgnorance
• Intentional being
• Drawing with a robotAwareness
• Ethical being
• I’m getting arrested / AdnauseamQuestioning
• Creative being
• Platform cooperatives / creative codingCreating

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What this means?
Digi-grasping as a concept through which to understand
Bringing embodied knowledge and being-in-the-world to teaching
digital technologies
Different modes
of gaining
knowledge from
the digital world
Different ways of
being in the in-
between of digital
and physical
Level of
empowerment

12. Value capturing in the fast emerging platform ecosystems
www.platformvaluenow.org

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