Tour of the Humanities Hub: ‘These tools allow us to push our research outwards’
The tour for programme chairs through the new Humanities Hub covered just one corridor. Previously, the labs were spread across the campus, but now most of them have been consolidated in the Huizinga Building.
‘In the past, we sometimes saw people reinventing the wheel,’ explains MediaLab+ coordinator Nathalie Muffels, who led the tour alongside her colleagues Janessa Vleghert and Thomas Vorisek. ‘It used to be difficult and labour-intensive to integrate what we offer here into your teaching. By bringing everything together, we now have a better view of the possibilities each of us has to offer.’
A lot under one roof
The new Humanities Hub offers a digital lab, an AI lab, a journalism lab, a podcast studio, a film studio, and a lab for game testing. The Hub also houses MediaLab+, where workshops are organised for students to practise digital skills and science communication.
‘We really have a lot of equipment here,’ emphasises technician Vleghert. ‘You can easily get acquainted with VR headsets, eye tracking, 3D scanning, and 3D printing. You can find out how it works, and whether it’s something for your experiment. For really large experiments, you’ll need to go to the Sylvius building, but we can definitely assist you with smaller projects.’
Students are also very welcome in the new labs. They can train skills such as video and audio editing, and borrow equipment like cameras for their projects. Vleghert: ‘For example, Journalism and New Media holds classes here once a week. If students have a question about a podcast or something similar, we can immediately pop into the studio.’
Future-proofing
‘With the Hub, we are making our teaching and research more future-proof,’ says video coordinator Thomas Vorisek. ‘People are often still a bit hesitant when it comes to the humanities. They’re unsure what it is exactly that we do. With these tools, we are keeping pace with the latest research developments. In the field of AI, for instance, we offer interesting new opportunities. At the same time, the labs allow us to push the results of existing research outwards.’