Abstract The paper proposes to bridge two areas of inquiry, digital hermeneutics and metaphor within a digital environment, by the analysis of a less studied phenomenon, i.e. How interpretation is supported and shaped by metaphors embedded in an interface. The study is articulated around three use cases for literary, didactic and historical representations of imaginary and existing cities based on a model (z-text) and interface (Z-editor) for zoomable texts. We will try to demonstrate that the zooming and contextualization features of the tool allow creating layers of meaning that can assist interpretation and critical readings of literature and history. How can interpretations of text and images be supported and shaped by metaphors embedded in an interface? This is the central question of our inquiry trying to bridge digital hermeneutics and metaphor within a digital environment. Interpretation is understood in terms of reconfiguration, reorganization, restructuring of content, in a sense close to Samuels and McGann's deformance as 'deformative critical operation' [, 36] and Ramsay’s transformation or transduction 'into an alternative vision' [].

The aim is to foster insight on metaphor as a cognitive rather than merely linguistic process and its interpretative incentives conveyed by means of a digital tool. The model and interface proposed for examination ( z-text and Z-editor) encompass the metaphor of zooming, permitting its users to work across scales and perspectives and eventually encouraging them to make peculiar associations. All the presented use cases, modeled via the Z-editor interface, involve cities–some imagined, some planned, and some actually existing–as literary, historical, cultural, and theoretical constructs. This choice is intended to illustrate how a digital tool creates opportunities for undertaking layered investigations within disciplines but also for engaging in cross-disciplinary exploration. Download Gratis Buku Politik Islam there. Considering that scholarship in Digital Humanities operates well from both sides, using tool-making to advance theory and theory to imagine new tools, we combine a practical perspective with theoretical reflection. An overview of works originating from different fields, such as philosophy of science and hermeneutics, cognitive linguistics, computer science and interface design, serves as a starting point for our argument. The assumption that digital technologies are shaping our perception and understanding of the world has already been expressed in a variety of studies.

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According to Capurro, these technologies have impact on all the 'levels of our being-in-the-world', and it is by the term of digital hermeneutics that he defines the way 'digital code is being interpreted and implemented (or not)' in today’s society []. Going beyond the traditional sense of text-centered interpretation, Capurro aligns with Ihde’s concept of expanding or material hermeneutics that considers technologies as instruments through which 'things can show themselves' [], and which may therefore play an important role in the process of producing knowledge. In the context of interactive art, Simanowski situates the hermeneutic act at the intersection of formal analysis of a digital artifact (structure, interface, grammar of interaction underpinned by the 'hidden text', the code) and interpretation, in the sense of how these aspects 'are perceived by the audience' []. Likewise, by their two-fold conception of digital hermeneutics, as theory of interpretation and context for the development of applications supporting interpretation, Akker et al. Illustrate how the different types of relationships (at the level of object, event, narrative), modeled within an interface for online access to historical documents, may assist the user in the interpretation of cultural heritage []. Moreover, Rockwell and Sinclair advocate for a digital hermeneutics with the focus on computer-assisted text analysis and interpretation intended to the humanities [].

Elaborating on Gualeni’s philosophical approach to virtual worlds in video games [] and on Ricoeur's theory of metaphor and narrative as reconfiguring human experience [] [], Romele draws attention to the “reconfiguration power” exerted by digital technologies on their users and to the “existential and ontological consequences” of the “production and use” of these technologies, articulated within the digital hermeneutics framework. Initially considered a purely linguistic and aesthetic phenomenon, metaphor is more and more studied in relation with cognitive processes, and implicitly interpretation, mediated or not via computers. Advocating for an experientialist approach within the broader context of a neural theory of language, Lakoff and Johnson assume that metaphor is 'one of the most basic mechanisms we have for understanding our experience' [, 212], whose primary function is to provide a 'partial understanding of one kind of experience in terms of another' [, 155].

From an interactionist perspective, Indurkhya proposes a cognitive model allowing to see metaphor as an unconventional description of an object or event ( target) by means of a different set of concepts ( source), which may involve the 'reorganization and restructuring' of the cognitive agent’s world view [, 245]. In Human Computer Interaction, metaphor is often described as providing the user with 'a model of the system' [] or as a 'device for explaining some system functionality or structure by asserting its similarity to another concept or thing already familiar to the user' [, 9]. Other aspects of metaphor as adopted in Computer Science refer, for instance, to its function in providing a conceptual framework for 'exploiting both preexisting and emerging similarity' and to its 'pedagogical', 'design-oriented' and 'scientific' roles [, 528–532], or to the 'culturally marked' nature of computer collocations and metaphors, manifested in the process of specialized translation from one language to another []. Within this context, evoking different approaches related to digital hermeneutics and metaphor, our argumentation will focus on the hermeneutic potential of metaphor as a built-in constituent of an interface, and especially on its 'reconfiguring' power common both to the interpretative attempt and to the metaphoric expression in a digital setting. We assume that such a perspective, combined with the presentation of three use cases, may encourage insight by going beyond the description of a tool to the discussion (and eventually theorization) of how knowledge is fashioned by means of that tool. In order to support this view, the paper is structured in four sections.

Section 2 provides the description of the z-text model and Z-editor interface that allows to create and explore zoomable texts. Section 3 discusses the three cases of literary, didactic and historical interpretations fostered by the metaphor of zooming, and the corresponding z-texts built via the Z-editor interface. Section 4 is dedicated to conclusions and future work. Steven Johnson claims that after the fixed perspective of Renaissance Art and the collages of Cubism, the 'way of seeing' of our era might be called the The Long Zoom: It is, by any measure, a difficult way of thinking, in part because our brains did not evolve tools to perceive or intuitively understand the scales of microbes or galaxies. You can catch glimpses of the long zoom in special-effects sequences, but to understand the connections between those different scales, to understand our place in the universe of the very large and the very small, you have to take another way in. [] Johnson’s context was the world of computer games, but his observations may bring to mind Srinivas’s concept of critical hermeneutics, an attempt to reconcile interpretation and critical thinking which enables both 'closeness' and 'distantiation' to the object of study [, 43].

Representation at different scales together with the possibility for perspective change constitute the main elements of the zooming metaphor implemented in the z-text model and Z-editor interface, as it will be described below. While the zooming function supports bridging distant and close reading by scalable reading, the combination with contextualization on the various planes to read text and image from various perspectives agrees with notions of deep reading [], deep maps [], deep texts, or topic modeling of hidden texts [], and deep networks [][].

This combination allows for the creation of multiple levels of meaning and supports a continuous process of reinterpretation from multiple perspectives, contributing this way to recent developments of digital hermeneutic methods. The first facet, alluding to a primer, is actually related to the idea of exploration and learning. The content accessible at a certain moment via the interface may stimulate the reader’s curiosity and his or her desire for further discovery: This sort of thing no longer surprised or upset Nell because it had happened hundreds of times during her relationship with the Primer. Besides, she had known, from the very first day Harv had given her the book, how the story would come out in the end. It was just that the story was anfractuous; it developed more ramifications the more closely she read it. A second aspect, implied by the “anfractuous” nature of the primer, is the representation at variable scale, which can be associated, by analogy, to the iterative growing of a fractal, like in Mandelbrot’s measurement of a coastline with smaller and smaller yardsticks [], or to the gradual uncovering of details by zooming on an electronic map.

In order to function, the metaphorical combination of learning, or being involved with the text, and zooming in the z-text model includes a layered structure [], to each layer corresponding a certain signification or symbolic meaning as compared to the whole. Figure 1 presents a z-textual layout where units of content called z-lexias — from Barthes’s lexias, 'units of reading' [, 13] — may be expanded on the deeper levels and explored by zoom-in and zoom-out. The z-lexias visible at a certain moment on the surface are disposed on different planes along with the Z-axis (hence the “z-“ prefix). The process of expanding a z-lexia is called z-writing (for instance, zl1 from level 1 is expanded to zl1.1 on level 2) and is conceived as either an addition of details to the selected content, or as a broadening in meaning according to a certain logic or argumentation strategy (simple to complex, concrete to abstract, local to global, etc.) or to a particular interpretation (as it will be shown in the following section). The traversal of the structure to read the z-lexias and made them visible on the screen is called z-reading and supposes a back and forth movement through the layers, downward for zoom-in, upward for zoom-out. Since the conception of layers and their symbolic entailment depend on the author’s intentions and imagination, the zooming metaphor may be more or less apparent to the reader and its degree of accomplishment is determined by the inner logic driving the transition from one scale to another. The interface, Z-editor, allows both z-writing and z-reading, to each mode (expansion, zoom-in, zoom-out) corresponding a distinct hovering cursor.

As illustrated in Figure 1, the metaphor of zooming is enriched by an additional facet for perspective change, represented by magnifying glasses and planes of different colors (right bottom), which may turn the representation into a multidimensional conceptual space. Nagin Dj Remix Mp3 Song Download there. For example, a z-lexia on level i can be expanded on level i+1 following multiple perspectives (e.g. Attached to a red, green or yellow magnifying glass), each opening a distinctive succession of layers of meaning.

The magnifying glass stands therefore for a multifaceted symbol, as a tool for curiosity-driven exploration, discovery and learning by making visible what is at first hidden, and as a device providing a kaleidoscopic view on the object of inquiry. From a technical point of view, Z-editor is a Java-based editor for documents in XML-TEI format. To each level corresponds an XML file, the ancestor-descendants relationships between z-lexias being modelled by means of a system of identifiers relating a parent on a certain level to its children on the subsequent one. There is no automatic processing for constructing the levels, the content and significance of each layer of meaning depend on the author’s ingenuity.

However, the XML-TEI encoding is completely transparent to the user. Although it can be used for annotation and map-like exploration, compared with editorial platforms for annotation or for connecting maps, narratives and timelines, such as and, Z-editor is more centered on the concepts of variable scale and perspective change as organizing principles mainly of text (that can also include images). Therefore, it can be used as a tool for reading and interpretation of existing texts (and images), reconfigured along with a zoomable layout, or as an instrument supporting creative scenarios implying, for instance, the incorporation of details in a gradually expanding piece of writing in a view spotlighting the process rather than the final product. The first point (reading, interpretation and reconfiguration of content) makes the object of the present study.

• The first, literary case concerns readings of the Invisible Cities in which Calvino describes Marco Polo’s accounts of visits to cities to Kubla Kahn, Emperor of the Tartars. In this case, the z-text model allows zooming on imaginary spaces in this framework story and navigating in an associative way between the Invisible Cities, related publications and artistic impressions, as well as critical readings hereof. • The zooming metaphor via Z-editor in the second, didactic case around the Dutch scholar of Flemish origin, Simon Stevin (1548-1620), teacher to Maurice, Count of Nassau, Prince of Orange (1567-1625), will demonstrate that the most common purely functional interpretations of his ideal city and houses as planning instrument for the construction of real cities are not convincing, but that these should be read in the context of didactic and educational purposes. • The third, historical case discusses how a z-text can be used to explore different levels of historical evidence of various imaginary depictions of existing cities. To this end, drawings of the citadel and the city of Groningen in the Netherlands in an atlas of the Flemish engineer Pierre Lepoivre (1546-1626) will be analyzed in a comparative way. Starting from these hypotheses, the zooming metaphor embedded in the z-text model makes possible to interpret, through rhizomatic lens, Calvino’s text itself “as strata” that can be explored by zoom-in and zoom-out.

According to Deleuze and Guattari, a rhizome is made of lines of 'segmentarity and stratification as its dimensions', and lines of 'flight or deterritorialization as the maximum dimension after which the multiplicity undergoes metamorphosis, changes in nature' [, 22]. The z-text created following this interpretation implied a restructuration articulated along with different lines of stratification and flight (or metamorphosis), inside and outside Calvino’s text. Figure 2 illustrates a reorganization of Leonia description which appeared to us as oscillating (to paraphrase Panigrahi’s analysis) around the 'new-old' divide. The first level of the representation (left) contains fragments (z-lexias) mainly focusing on the concept of 'new' verbalized through expressions like 'refashion', 'fresh', 'brand-new', 'latest', 'up-to-date', 'new', 'renew'. The second level (right) completes the text with elements that highlight the tension between the passion and enjoyment of Leonia’s inhabitants for incessant renewal and the inevitable accumulation of old produced by it, expressed by phrases such as 'remains', 'yesterday’s Leonia', 'garbage', 'expel', 'discard', 'yesterday’s existence'.

Zooming-in or out to surface or hide these elements from deeper 'strata', may draw attention to the 'new-old' opposition and dynamics inherent to the text. The figure shows the result of a zoom-in action, manifested by the expansion of the clicked z-lexia from the left and the retrieval of Calvino’s original fragment on the right.

While the “new-old” stratification determined a reconfiguration on levels inside Leonia text, further interpretation, using different “lines of flight” and changing of perspectives, implied ramifications of the z-text outside Calvino’s text. The first extension refers to visual representations, not belonging to the original work, but imagined by various artists, the second –moving on the same plane with contextual information- enables other readings of Calvino’s work, both by critics and himself.

Recently, Elio Baldi focused on Calvino’s various roles in interactions between authors and critics by occasionally looking through the lens of the writer and in other moments through the eyes of the reader or editor []. Indeed, lectures by Calvino and interviews with the author reveal many shifts in perspectives on multiple planes.

In a published lecture dealing with the writing of Invisible Cities, Calvino reacts to 'almost all critics', but also states 'that the author’s view no longer counts' and provides interpretations 'as one reader among others' [, 41–42]. Calvino sometimes directly puts the Invisible Cities into context by referring to works that similarly are inspired by Marco Polo’s travels, such as the poem Kubla Kahn by Samuel Taylor Coleridge [], The Message from the Emperor by Franz Kafka of 1919 [], or Il Deserto dei Tartari ( The Tartar Steppe) by Dino Buzzati of 1940 [] []. On other occasions, references are indirect, for example when Calvino notes that the atlas of Kubla Kahn contains images of “lands visited in thought, but not yet discovered or founded: New Atlantis, Utopia, the City of the Sun” [, 147].

On a more detailed level the possibility of sideways movements becomes important when Calvino reacts to all those critics who underlined the importance of the closing sentence by claiming that the Invisible Cities is “a many facetted book” with “various possible ‘conclusions’” [, 41]. By combining the zooming functionality with the representation of visual and contextual information a z-text becomes a multidimensional space as explained below. Figure 3 presents an extension of a level 2 z-lexia (top left) describing Leonia’s stratified “load of refuse”, by a change of perspective (orange, VISUAL magnifying glass, bottom left) that includes an artistic illustration of the city and its mountains of leftovers (Brannigan, 2006). The same fragment can be expanded by considering a different, contextualization angle (blue, CONTEXT magnifying glass, top right), adding, for instance, on levels 3, 4 Kafka’s depiction of the imperial city “piled high with its own refuse” [, 28] and the walls and towers of Coleridge’s Xanadu [].

Further contextualization on levels 5, 6 (bottom right) enriches the representation of Marco Polo’s 'tales of impossible cities', narrated to the Kahn, by Calvino’s own reflections on the 'crisis of the overgrown city' and the 'destruction of the natural environment', as one of the main topics of his book [, 39–41]. Since these extensions are not part of the original content (unlike the first z-text), they can be interpreted as engendered by different 'lines of flight', determining the metamorphosis of the text that becomes image or paratext. The interface may support therefore both the reading (and restructuring) of the Invisible Cities text, according to a stratified interpretation (Figure 2), and its expansion by adding layers of related forms of expression and reflection (Figure 3).

While the latter example hints to potential artistic, literary and reflective contextualizations inspired by Calvino’s comments, we may further imagine this type of gradual extension outside Invisible Cities as developed (similarly to Barthes’s analysis in S/Z) in line with different interpretative 'codes' highlighting the 'writability' and plurality of the text. As Calvino observes: And yet, all these pages put together did not make a book: for a book (I think) is something which has a beginning and an end (even if it’s not a novel, in the strict sense of the word). It is a space which the reader must enter, wander round, maybe lose his way in, and eventually find an exit, or perhaps even several exits, or maybe a way of breaking out on his own. [, 38] If we enter our concentric city of Leonia again immediately new associative perspectives pop up.

As shown in the figure above, we recognize for instance Calvino’s reference to Kafka’s story of the Emperor’s messenger wanting to report about the death of Kubla Kahn by trying in vain to break through the walls surrounding the palace []. Nowadays, the concentric rings of garbage surrounding Leonia has also become symbolic for polluted, unlivable cities. However, another of Calvino’s references, the one to Campanella’s concentric walled 'City of the Sun' allows to link the form of Leonia with images of built and not built fortified cities that are relevant to our two next cases focusing on the impact of visualizations of imaginary and existing cities for town planning, fortification and architectural design. In the years 1605 and 1608, the Flemish mathematician Simon Stevin (1548-1620) published five books in two volumes with the title Wisconstighe Ghedachtenissen ( Mathematical Memoirs) that can be seen as a compilation of his private lessons to Prince Maurice of Orange (1567-1625) on mathematics, natural sciences and military arts at the court in The Hague. In the fifth book, Van de Ghemengde Stoffen ( Miscellanea), Stevin explained in a note that he had not been able to finish several treatises announced in the table of content (on Arithmetic, Book keeping, Architecture, Music Theory, Military Arts and other topics) in time for the printer and planned, therefore, to publish these at a later moment [, 5, 107]. By the time Stevin died in 1620, only a few fragments of these announced treatises had appeared in other publications. This case discusses interpretations on Stevin’s uncompleted treatise on town planning and architecture of which fragments were adapted and published posthumously by his son Hendrik Stevin in his Materiae Politicae Burgherlicke Stoffen ( Political Matters Civic Affairs) (1649) and Wisconstich Filosofisch Bedryf ( Mathematical-Philosophical Act) (1667).

Charles van den Heuvel made a reconstruction of Stevin’s treatise on town planning and architecture, De Huysbou, on the basis of excerpts in manuscripts of scholars such as Isaac Beeckman, Constantijn and Christiaan Huygens and Hendrik Stevin that circulated in the Dutch Republic []. Stevin’s diagrams of ideal buildings and town known via the publication in Hendrik Stevin’s Materiae Politicae have been often described in purely morphological and rational terms [] [] [].

However, we will try to reveal, via the zooming features of the Z-editor interface, that Stevin’s city architecture was not conceived as one rational whole, but rather should be read from a didactic perspective to explain a multi-layered model of an ideal city and houses all based on the same underlying concept of mirror-symmetry. Nowadays we are familiar with the concept of mirror-symmetry, but at the time that Stevin wrote his treatise authors on architecture used the term ‘symmetria’ in the Vitruvian tradition i.e. As the harmonious ratio of the parts to the whole. For that reason Stevin introduced the neologism: 'lycksijdcheyt', literally like-sidedness. For Stevin, this distinction was not trivial. But in his view, mirror-symmetry had its origins in nature, unlike the proportional symmetry of Vitruvius and his followers, and should therefore serve as the basis for logical architecture: [.] a building should be like an animal, and if one wishes to make it correctly, one should follow nature.

By which it should be understood that just as nature or the Creator of animals produces like-sidedness, so the architect should emulate this and design buildings with like-sidedness. [, 13] (transl. The zooming and contextualization features of the Z-editor (Figure 4) allow us to demonstrate why the relationships between Stevin’s town and houses should be understood in the context of his didactic explanation of the underlying principle of mirror-symmetry rather by the rational arguments based on morphological correspondences between some (but not all) of the buildings blocks of houses and the town. A closer look at Stevin’s town plan reveals that most, but not all features can be explained rationally. The rectangular ground plan with its square buildings blocks enables an efficient distribution of houses and can be therefore read from a civic planning perspective as rational. However, the bastions with acute pointed faces and the odd double flanks from the bastions adjacent to the corner bastions are compromises from a military point of view. Stevin was well aware of that.

In his treatise on fortification, De Sterctenbouwing [], Stevin explained that the optimal form for a large city to defend itself would be a hexagon. A comparison on level 1 (city) shows indeed that the hexagonal perimeter of the fortress city results in bastions with more obtuse points that are less vulnerable for collision after a heavy impact of gunfire. Also zooming reveals that Stevin’s city cannot be read as one coherent whole. Hoeven/Louwen represented Stevin’s city as a system of building components that could be pieced together []. However, if we zoom-in to 2 nd level, that represents buildings blocks containing different numbers of houses, it becomes clear that as a result of the variations in their rectangular form they would not all fit into the square buildings blocks represented in the town plan. Despite their differences, the blocks have in common that they are organized in such a way that all houses receive as much light as possible from the inner courts and that the rules of mirror-symmetry are always respected.

In short, Stevin was not interested in forms of towns and dwellings in which contrasting demands of military, economic or social orders were planned as one whole. Instead, Stevin’s writings on the layout of houses and towns are characterized by the separation of different levels and the segregation of adjacent functions. Stevin’s synthesis of houses into blocks, blocks into towns and the ordering of urban extensions focused more on the organizational method than on the precise form. And this method was governed by a single principle: that of mirror-symmetry, to which all other organizational forms were subordinated. The reason why Stevin’s city has been read by many authors as one systematic whole might have been enhanced by their use of its representation in print in the work of Hendrik Stevin. Hendrik Stevin represented his father’s city with all the names of the civic functions: palace, churches, markets, university etc.

Engraved in the image itself. This way, the image of the city could be read independently as one whole. However, Hendrik Stevin’s excerpt in the manuscript version of the Huysbou, drawn after the original drawings, reveals that his father’s representation of the town, buildings blocks and separated houses consists of a series of diagrams (including letters/numbers referred to in the descriptions) that can only be understood in combination with the text and other illustrations.

Zooming provides therefore a figurative way of unfolding our contextualization and interpretation of Stevin’s multi-layered model that allowed him, in his role of private tutor, to explain the principles and natural logic of his architecture and town planning on each level, most clearly for educational and pedagogic purposes. Logical and lucid models - albeit incomplete - were for Stevin a more appropriate means of achieving that goal than a complete reproduction of reality that, with all its contradictions, might obscure the problem, or to say it in Simon Stevin’s own words in his work on fortification 'because the teaching should not be complicated by arguments' [, 68]. In Figure 6, the explanatory texts and drawings from Lepoivre Atlas are structured on four levels corresponding to different illustrations of the city of Groningen (bird eye view, plan with the hexagonal citadel, the hexagonal citadel itself, detail of the bastion) that can be traversed by zooming-in (right to left) and zooming-out (left to right). Two alternative views (outline with pentagonal citadel and pentagonal citadel alone) are also provided on level 2 and 3 via perspective change (AGUSTINO-CAMPI, ALEOTTI-CAMPI).

As the symbolic representation (bottom left) suggests, the z-text allows the reader not only to explore the projection of the city at different scales but also to understand Lepoivre drawings in a larger context based on the degree of reliability of historical evidence, as further explained below. Pierre Lepoivre had assisted in the execution of the citadel of Groningen and must therefore have known which designs of Campi had been approved for execution []. Nowadays, we would call Lepoivre’s variations on Campi’s non executed designs historical falsifications, however at the time of Lepoivre the mixing of sources to illuminate historic events that took place apparently was not considered to be problematic. Not only Lepoivre knew also the archdukes in their official role of sovereigns of the Habsburg Netherlands must have known.

They had given Lepoivre official commission to make designs for reliable fortification works and given him 500 Flemish pounds for the atlas, but seem to have had no objection that the engineer selected or at least included drawings based on non-executed designs or adaptations of representations of historical events. The re-use in Lepoivre’s atlas of the designs of Campi originally intended to explain technical details and to support administrators in their decision to approve or disapprove the execution hereof gave them an additional cultural meaning as objects of prestige or study in the private collection of the archdukes. Finally, we may picture ourselves navigating in an associative way through imaginary cities whose features might have inspired both Calvino's literary writings as Lepoivre's designs. Contemporary artists still inspired by Calvino seem to delve into a collective visual memory of 'cities', in a way Renaissance engineers linked their designs to representations of ideal cities and new fortress towns, from Campanella's City of the Sun to Zamosz in Poland. Renaissance ideal fortress cities were radial concentric cities with a polygonal perimeter with angular bastions. Therefore circumscribing and inscribing circles played an essential role in designing fortified cities and citadels.

The design of fortifications was not just functional. Training in the Military Arts belonged to the education of noblemen, who often collected drawings of fortifications. Fortification atlases were cultural artifacts amongst other books on architecture such as the many Vitruvius editions of the Renaissance that often contained antique and modern visual interpretations of the city described in the lost original manuscript.

One of Calvino's references to Campanella's concentric walled City of the Sun allows to link the form of Leonia with images of built and not built fortified cities as the designs of citadels in the atlas of Lepoivre. This comparison is of interest since Calvino once considered a theme 'Cities and Form' as well, but decided to merge it with those of other cities [, 38]. By extension, we can imagine a traversal through the space of city forms, following multiple exploration paths and connecting imaginary cities in literature (Calvino, Campanella) and in architectural treatises and theory (Vitruvius) with imaginary representations of existing cities in design (Lepoivre). The examples presented in this section were intended to illustrate how the reconfiguration, restructuring, reorganization of existing content (excerpts from books, articles, essays, etc., images) may be shaped via metaphoric and digital lens, both in the interpretation and the production of knowledge. Our assumption was that the interface mediates a two-stage process, by influencing our perception of a topic, as well as the way we represent this perception via the interface.

In our cases, the metaphor of zooming determined a certain predisposition to discern different scales, angles, associations and layers of meaning in the material of study and, at the same time, allowed remodeling (and ultimately rereading) the matter in a digital form consistent with that metaphor. A phenomenon worthy of further inquiry.

The first case proposed a stratification of textual and visual details, made visible or invisible through the change of scale and perspective, which allowed a critical projection of Calvino’s Invisible Cities onto a 'rhizomatic' interpretative space. In the second example, we transposed Stevin’s conceptual system of town design into a scalable structure, from the level of the whole city to that of a house, to the abstract layer explaining the concept of mirror-symmetry and its role as an organizing principle within the whole system interpreted in this way from a didactic viewpoint. An additional z-text illustrated the contextualization of Stevin’s work by highlighting, via the switch of perspective from manuscript to print, the differences in the visual-textual dynamics in Simon’s versus Hendrik’s representations of the town plans. The third experiment dealt with a symbolic traversal at variable scale of the city of Groningen drawings from Lepoivre Atlas which together with views of alternative designs assisted interpretation within the larger context of more or less reliable historical evidence. As Eberhardt affirms referring to Gadamer’s hermeneutics, the use of zooming not only provides more detail but also allows horizontal expansion, resulting in widening horizons [, 87–88]. The study of the role of zooming in particular, and of metaphors in general, in digital hermeneutics has, in our opinion, the potential for widening horizons, both in terms of interpretation and of production of knowledge.

Further experiments and features development should be envisaged (e.g., allowing the users to have an overview, reconstruct and annotate the steps they took while navigating in the interpretative space provided by the digital tool and the implied metaphor). Moreover, further requirements can be explored by interdisciplinary research and training programs, like the Digital History and Hermeneutics Doctoral Training Unit, starting in 2017 at the University of Luxembourg, intended to create a 'space of experiment' and to encourage 'critical and self-reflexive use of digital tools and technologies' [], in order to stimulate creative thinking and to improve the exploitation of these tools and technologies for research and teaching. In this context, the combined analysis of metaphor and digital hermeneutics may open new paths for experiment and reflection in Digital Humanities. [2] Hendrik Stevin, Ideal town plan according to design Simon Stevin, drawing in ink, Hendrik Stevin, Eenighe Stucken der Crychconst. Beschreve deur Simon Stevin, The Hague, KB National Library of the Netherlands, Manuscript 128 A9 - II, fol.

Image (c) The Hague, KB National Library of the Netherlands. Hendrik Stevin, after Simon Stevin's buildings block, illustration, Hendrik Stevin, Materiae Politicae, 'Byvough der Stedenoirdening'. (Leiden: Adryaen Rosenboom 1649). Hendrik Stevin, after Simon Stevin's house, illustration, Hendrik Stevin, Materiae Politicae, 'Byvough der Stedenoirdening'. (Leiden: Adryaen Rosenboom 1649). Hendrik Stevin, Ideal town plan according to design Simon Stevin, illustration, Hendrik Stevin, Materiae Politicae, 'Byvough der Stedenoirdening'. (Leiden: Adryaen Rosenboom 1649).

[3] Hendrik Stevin, Ideal town plan according to design Simon Stevin, drawing in ink, Hendrik Stevin, Eenighe Stucken der Crychconst. Beschreve deur Simon Stevin, The Hague, KB National Library of the Netherlands, Manuscript 128 A9 - II, fol.

Image (c) The Hague, KB National Library of the Netherlands. Hendrik Stevin, after Simon Stevin's buildings block, illustration, Hendrik Stevin, Materiae Politicae, 'Byvough der Stedenoirdening'. (Leiden: Adryaen Rosenboom 1649). Hendrik Stevin, after Simon Stevin's house, illustration, Hendrik Stevin, Materiae Politicae, 'Byvough der Stedenoirdening'.

(Leiden: Adryaen Rosenboom 1649). Hendrik Stevin, Ideal town plan according to design Simon Stevin, illustration, Hendrik Stevin, Materiae Politicae, 'Byvough der Stedenoirdening'. (Leiden: Adryaen Rosenboom 1649).