Tag Archives: digital humanities

The Practice and Problems of Digital Art History

I’ve written about the digital humanities (DH) before, posting a brief introduction to some DH tools, classes, and resources. In this post I want to focus specifically on the practice of DH in the field of art history. DH can bring a lot to field, but the practice of digital art history is also not without its challenges. The field of art history entered the digital world when the switch from teaching with slides to teaching with digital images occurred, but academia has pushed further into the digital realm with the increasing ubiquity of researching, publishing, and pursuing scholarship in digital environments (Zorich, 2013).

Not isolated to the field of art history is the reverence for the print publication. Print publishing is currently still the marker by which professors are evaluated for tenure and advancement, Deviating from this model could negatively affect chances for such (Zorich, 2013). Digital projects also present problems in their evaluation. As of yet, there are no general rules or guidelines on how to evaluate the merit of digital scholarship projects in academia. Difficulties also present themselves in the very visual nature of the art history field. Digital image analysis methods are not nearly as straightforward as digital text analysis. (Drucker, 2013 ). Text analysis using digital methods forms a major part of DH scholarship, providing research based on a distant reading of texts (Drucker, 2013 ) Digital methods for image analysis are still “far from being able to imitate human abilities of perception and analysis” (Drucker, 2013, p. 8).

Despite the challenges of digital art history, it is still very much a worthy field to pursue. One way art history faculty can dabble in digital art history, without the pressure and problems associated with doing so in their own research, is by bringing DH methods into the classroom (J. Schell, personal communication, December 4, 2017). The difficulty in evaluating projects still exists, how does a professor grade a digital project versus the standard term paper, but the stakes are lower (J. Schell, personal communication, December 4, 2017). DH in art history offers different ways for students to engage with the material, build skills, and spark their interest in cultural heritage in a different new way (J. Schell, personal communication, December 4, 2017).

Scalar, Omeka, and WordPress are popular tools that are used for creating digital collections and presenting digital exhibits. ImagePlot and ImageJ can be used for analyzing large sets of images. The type of digital tool used really depends on what type of question is being asked. Text analysis can be incorporated into art history studies, too. MALLETT and Voyant are two tools used for text analysis. It could be an interesting project to analyze the papers or letters from an artist’s personal archive. These are just tiny handful of digital tools that can be incorporated into art history scholarship and add meaning to the field.

So, where does the library and the art librarian fit into this? Subject specialists and liasons to art history departments may choose to explore these tools on their own and bring them to their faculty and students as seen fit. If a college has a department or librarian dedicated to DH, the art librarian can create connections between these departments and their own. Librarians have long been champions and purveyors of new technology.. I think even in departments that may be hesitant to move into digital art history territory, the art librarian can bring some simple DH tools into the practice in a way that suitably fits the environment. Creating digital exhibits is a great way to being work with digital scholarship, without using overly complicated tools or needing complex tech skills.

Lastly, I’d like to share some neat digital art history projects I found via the Frick Art Reference Library Digital Art History Lab.

Mapping Art Markets in Europe
Vincent Van Gogh The Letters
UCLA Rome Lab

Drucker, J. (2013). Is there a “digital” art history?. Visual Resources, 29(1-2),           5-13. DOI: 10.1080/01973762.2013.761106

Zorich, D. M. (2013). Digital art history: A community assessment. Visual               Resources, 29(1-2), 14-21. DOI: 10.108010973762.2013.761108

SEI 2017 Instructor of the Week: Justin Schell

We’re thrilled to introduce the amazing instructors for this year’s Summer Educational Institute, many of whom are joining us for the first time! We’ll be highlighting one instructor from the 2017 curriculum each week, so be sure to stay tuned.

We’re happy to introduce Justin Schell, Learning Design Specialist, University of Michigan Library. Justin will be leading the workshop, Getting a Digital Humanities Project Started, and co-leading Let’s Get Practical: How did they do that? Reverse Engineering DH Projects.

Getting a Digital Humanities Project Started will help you structure DH Projects, from the goals and outcomes, to the tools, techniques, metadata, and project management objectives. The hands-on component, Let’s Get Practical: How did they do that? Reverse Engineering DH Projects will provide time to apply skills and strategies to projects and collections. Come with questions, leave with answers!

justin2.jpg

Justin Schell

Did you know?

Justin Schell is a filmmaker, writer, and director of the Shapiro Design Lab for the University of Michigan Library. He holds a PhD in Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society from the University of Minnesota, where he completed an online and multimodal dissertation. In addition, he helped found the Minnesota Hip-Hop Archive as part of the University of Minnesota Libraries.

As a documentary filmmaker, he has completed a number of short and feature-length films, including We Rock Long Distance, which weaves together the sounds and stories of three Twin Cities hip-hop artists (M.anifest, Maria Isa, and Tou SaiKo Lee) as they journey home to Ghana, Puerto Rico, and Thailand to create unexpected collaborations across generation and geography. More of his video work has been shown in the Walker Art Center, Twin Cities Public Television, online at the Huffington Post and the Progressive, and screened in the Twin Cities Film Fest, Twin Cities Underground Film Festival, and the Qhia Dab Neeg Hmong Film Festival. He regularly teaches courses on documentary production, interviewing, and editing.

Register for SEI to benefit from his knowledge directly!

Read all about SEI at http://seiworkshop.org where you can find our Statement of Inclusivity, info about registering, accommodations, curriculum and much more.

In its 14th year as a joint program between the  Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) and the Visual Resources Association Foundation (VRAF), SEI 2107 will be held at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, from June 6-9, 2017.

SEI provides both new and more experienced professionals the opportunity to stay current in the rapidly changing fields of digitization, project management, fair use and copyright, metadata, and digital asset management, as well as significant networking opportunities. As a 2015 SEI graduate noted, “The curriculum was excellent in scope, striking a balance between detailed, practical exploration of relevant skills & tools, and putting these in the context of broader issues in visual resources/arts librarianship.”

SEI 2017 is filling up. Register soon!

Contact the SEI co-chairs Jesse Henderson or Nicole Finzer with any questions and Follow us on Facebook

See you in North Carolina!

Digital Humanities: A Starting Point

I’ve recently been reaching out to colleagues for information and advice on learning more about digital humanities(DH) and digital scholarship. It’s a term I’ve heard bandied around a lot at my library, but has never been fully clear to me. I thought I’d share some resources that have been suggested to me, which can hopefully help anyone else who may be grappling with the concept and work of digital scholarship, but would like to know more.

Texts

Web

  • Rebuilding the Porfolio: DH for Art Historians
    In 2014, The Getty Foundation held a two week institute on art history and DH. There are good readings and resources still available on the site. I’ve also found some interesting posts on the Getty’s blog discussing art history in relation to digital scholarship.

  • The Programming Historian
    This website hosts peer-reviewed tutorials on different tools used in DH work. I appreciate the simplicity and easy navigation of the site. Different tutorials are grouped by use under the Lessons link.

  • Miriam Posner’s blog
    Articles by Miriam Posner have been suggested to me multiple times. She is Faculty and the Coordinator for UCLA’s Digital Humanities Program.“How did they make that?” is a great post where she goes through several digital projects and maps out what the project is, the tools that were used, and how to get started using them yourself.

  • Subscribe to the ACRL Digital Humanities email list. The group also runs a blog, which shares readings, events, and opportunities in the digital humanities.

Workshops

  • Digital Humanities Summer Institute
    DHIS is a weeklong institute at the The University of Victoria in Vancouver, Canada. Participants take one course that meets daily.. It is a large conference and they a variety lot of classes, like Fundamentals of Coding for Humanists, Digital Storytelling, and Text Processing to name a few. I have heard from past attendees that DHIS is a valuable chance for networking. There are scholarships available for students and early-career professionals that can help to defray some of the costs.

  • Humanities Intensive Learning and Teaching
    Unlike DHIS, HILT is a smaller program with more intensive and rigorous courses. The location changes from year to year. This summer’s HILT will be in Austin, TX. Again, participants choose one class to take during the 5-day institute. Classes offered this year include Programming for Humanists with Python, Introduction to the Text Encoding Initiative for Historical Documents, and New Approaches to Literary Archives. HILT also offers scholarships for their program.

  • Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School
    DHOxSS is like DHIS and HILT, except that it is in England. The workshops run for 5 days and while coursework is similar to the other institutes, they also offer an Introduction to Digital Humanities course. This class gives a thorough overview of the field through presentations, talks, and workshops.

Other Resources

  • Library Juice
    Library Juice offers a wide variety of continuing education and professional development courses for librarians. There are a couple classes that are related to the DH. Others touch on areas or skills that are also applicable, such as courses on coding or metadata.

  • If you work at an academic library, check to see if any departments offer programming in the digital humanities. Where I work, the English and History departments often hold lectures and workshops related to digital scholarship. I became interested in DH after taking a workshop on text mining that was primarily aimed at grad students in the Japanese Studies program. I found it useful for understanding what digital projects can look like and discovering digital tools that are out there.

  • There may be DH conferences that happen near you, depending upon where you live.Network Detroitis a conference that happens close to me where people come together to share their work and discuss new advancements in DH.

I’m sure there are a bunch more resources out there that I haven’t mentioned. Please share any ideas, thoughts, etc. in the comments!

CFP: Image/Interface Symposium, Toronto, May 13-14 2016

Image/Interface Symposium
University of Toronto,
Friday May 13 and Saturday May 14, 2016Co-hosted by the Department of Arts, Culture, and Media, University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) and the Jackman Humanities Institute (JHI), University of Toronto St. George.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: Monday, February 29, 2016.
Notification of acceptance: Mid-March 2016.

Keynote Speakers 

The Otolith Group, London-based art collective
Lisa Parks, Professor of Film & Media Studies, UC Santa Barbara
Julian Stallabrass, Professor of Modern & Contemporary Art, The Courtauld Institute of ArtThe Image/Interface symposium will explore the notion of technologies as physical objects—things, tools, apparatus, and the physically situated environment—for producing, receiving, and engaging with the increasing immateriality of imagery and visual cultures.  The symposium foregrounds the materiality of technological practice while examining the reception, use, and sharing of cultural and political expression as well as the communication of embodied or situated knowledge and experiences.

We invite artists, creative practitioners, and scholars from across the fields of Media and Journalism Studies, Art History, and Visual Communication to present recent research and artistic work that critically reconsiders images in relation to:

● the materiality of the screen, the lens, and the interface
● the social and political ramifications of immersion, embodiment, and interactivity
● information sharing, surveillance and counter-surveillance
● the digital expression, construction and/or obfuscation of identity, gender, or ethnicity
● media-oriented social engagement, collaboration and social knowledge creation
 

Scholars from all stages of their careers (including PhD students) are welcome to apply. A honorarium at CARFAC rates will be offered to artists and creative practitioners.

The symposium will take place at JHI on Friday May 13 and at UTSC on Saturday May 14. If selected, each presenter will participate in a thematic panel and be asked to prepare a presentation of about 15-20 minutes. We ask that invitees attend the events on both days.

The Image/Interface symposium is part of the JHI 2015-2016 Program for the Arts. The  program theme “Things that Matter” investigates how material culture carries “affective, social, cultural, historical, religious, economic, and political meanings and relation” and how things “provide insights into how people make sense of experience and come together as societies” (humanities.utoronto.ca/Announce_ProgArts15-16).

Abstract Submission Guidelines and Format

Please submit the following to https://www.humanities.utoronto.ca/funding/id=61.

➔ An abstract (maximum 300 words). The abstract should indicate the format of your proposed presentation, i.e. academic paper or creative work.
➔ Institutional affiliation and short bio (maximum 200 words).
➔For Artists and Creative Practitioners:
-a CV (maximum 5 pages)
-a PDF portfolio (maximum 5MB)For more information please contact: 

Researchers: Evie Yi GU, yi.gu@utoronto.ca

Artists and creative practitioners: Will Kwan, wkwan@utsc.utoronto.ca

Conference Organizers


· Ruoyun Bai, Associate Professor of Media Studies
· Kenzie Burchell, Assistant Professor of Journalism
· Evie Yi Gu, Assistant Professor of Art History
· Will Kwan, Associate Professor of Studio

Doing Digital Art History: a data-mining project on open content

http://blog.martinbellander.com/post/115411125748/the-colors-of-paintings-blue-is-the-new-orange

Here’s a little data-mining project I absolutely love: charting the colours used in paintings throughout history, by analyzing the pixels of digitized artworks hosted online. (The obvious caveat is to make sure you’re sampling from collections digitized with some fidelity, instead of, say, most of these copies … )

The creator put all of his code in R online, so you could query the exact same collection to do similar analyses with no trouble at all (if you were into that sort of thing).

tumblr_inline_nm74p36jkN1traviy_1280

 

I made a visualization of the change in colors of paintings over time which a friend tweeted. Several people wanted more info on the method used, so I decided to write a detailed description here, also including the (not very pretty) code I used.

Recently I read a couple of very nice blog post on color use in movies, where colors where extracted from either movie posters or the actual frames of trailers.

I decided to try to do something similar but with data for a longer time period than the era of film. I decided to download images of paintings. So there is a bunch of different sites where you can access (photos of) paintings, e.g. BBC, Google Art Project, Wikiart, Wikimedia commons, and various museums. One of my favorites is the BBC:s site where you can browse through over 200K of well organized paintings! An amazing resource. For many of these there is also information on the year they were painted, the artist, etc.

Also, be sure to check out the comment thread for a discussion of the whole “what’s up with all the blue” question — my inkling was about Prussian Blue and other Western colour-fads, too.

Student Project Opportunity: Digital Database Coordinator, HERE Arts Center, NY, NY

Digital Database Coordinator Project Position

HERE Arts Center, located at 145 Spring Street at Dominick in New York City, has embarked on an archival project to organize and access archival holdings for the creation of a visual history of HERE, including work as Tiny Mythic and HOME for Contemporary Theater along with HERE’s many theater programs and the evolution of its location in SOHO. The theater archive of HERE encompasses a date range from the late 1980s to the present.

A graduate archival student with an interest in theater is needed to design, program, and configure a database system to work in conjunction with existing systems at HERE in order to capture digital assets for historical web presentations on the HERE Arts Center website. This is an excellent opportunity for the successful candidate to acquire hands-on digital asset management experience.

The Digital Database Coordinator will:
–Analyze the systems at HERE and recommend a system based on HERE’s cloud-based (Dropbox) storage platform
–Configure the system to meet HERE’s needs
–Instruct HERE’s staff on the maintenance and use of the system
–Work in consult with a Digital Curator of Theater Collections

Salary: $500 stipend available for successful candidate.

https://archivesgig.wordpress.com/2015/03/10/new-york-ny-student-digital-database-coordinator-term-here-arts-center/

Student Research Paper Award from ASIS&T: “What do Information and Technology Mean to the Arts and Humanities?”

http://ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu/asistsc/studentresearchaward/

The deadline for this award is March 25th, 2015 – it appears to be only open to current students, not recent graduates, although you might want to confirm that via email if you’re interested. The monetary award amount will be announced in February for both the Masters and PhD prizes; winners are invited to present their research during the virtual Symposium in April, and may possibly be invited to present during the ASIS&T Annual Conference in November.

SIG-AH AND SIG-VIS STUDENT RESEARCH PAPER AWARD

Call for Student Papers: “What do Information and Technology Mean to the Arts and Humanities?”

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Wednesday, March 25, 2015

FINALIST NOTIFICATION: Friday, April 10, 2015

FINALIST PRESENTATIONS: Wednesday, April 22 or Thursday, April 23, 2015

The Special Interest Group for Arts and Humanities (SIG-AH) and the Special Interest Group for Visualization, Images, & Sound (SIG-VIS) of the Association for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T) are seeking papers for a Master’s and PhD student research paper award. Finalists will be invited to present their research during a virtual Symposium in the spring (April 22 and 23) and two (2) winners will receive a Best Student Paper award and cash prize. Winners may also receive an invitation to present on a possible panel at the 2015 Annual Conference in St. Louis (November 6-10).

Theme

The contest theme “What do Information and Technology Mean to the Arts and Humanities?” is open-ended to invite participation from a variety of theoretical and empirical perspectives on the topic. We encourage graduate-level submissions from a broad range of disciplines including arts, humanities, library and information science, and computer science. Papers should explore the role or application of information and technology in the arts and humanities and may include, but are not limited to, past research, case studies, and current projects in the areas of:

  • eHumanities/arts and humanities eScience
  • Digital reference and eResearch discovery platforms
  • Text/data mining and the use of large-scale corpora
  • Scholarly communications and digital publishing
  • Data visualization
  • The role of information technology in managing images and audiovisual resources
  • The use of images and audiovisual resources in information practices
  • Digital Humanities
  • Technology implementation projects
  • Research assessment and altmetrics

(The list is meant to be illustrative, not prescriptive.)

Who is Eligible?

Submissions can be made as a single author or a group of authors, including collaborations between students from different institutions. All submitted works should be previously unpublished. Authors do NOT need to be members of ASIS&T. All research is expected to be purely the students’ work. Research undertaken as part of a course, an internship experience, or a thesis project is eligible. Authors are required to secure any necessary permissions related to research findings from internships and thesis projects being used in this research competition.

Requirements & Selection Criteria

While the contest theme and eligibility are open, papers should show an appropriate level of writing and should include an advanced theoretical or empirical discussion, methodology or analysis. Paper submissions must adhere to the following guidelines:

  • Word .doc or .docx format
  • 10 single-spaced pages or less (approximately 4,000 words), 12 pt. font, and must follow a standard citation style (APA preferred). Tables, graphs, images, etc…may appear within the body of the text.
  • Author names should not appear anywhere in the main text
  • Separate cover page with title, author names, institutional affiliations, and abstract of 250 words or less

Submission details should be made via electronic form and final papers emailed by the March 25, 2015 deadline (details below).

Papers will be selected based on the following criteria: relevance of topic to the contest theme, originality of research and approach, and quality of student writing. Papers not meeting these requirements may be excluded from the contest.

Spring 2015 Symposium

Finalists will be invited to present their research during a virtual Symposium on April 22 and 23, 2015. The Symposium will highlight student research projects amidst the larger discussion of the applications and uses of information and technology in the arts and humanities. Finalists will be selected based on the selection criteria above, as well as the possible contribution of the research to the Symposium.

Awards

Two (2) finalist papers may be awarded for Best Master’s/MLIS Student Paper or Best PhD Student Paper, including a monetary prize. Based on the quality of submissions, additional awards may be made for merit-worthy papers.

Award monetary prize amounts will be announced in February.

Winners may be invited to present on a possible panel at the 2015 ASIS&T Annual Conference in St. Louis, MO, November 6-10, 2015 (pending panel acceptance on the Conference schedule).

Submission and Deadline

Authors are invited to submit papers, based on the requirements and selection criteria above, by filling out the form at http://goo.gl/forms/tSFJjckVId and emailing the final paper to ASIST.SIGAH {at} gmail.com before 11:59 pm PST, March 25, 2015.

Please ensure the information submitted on the web form matches the final paper submission cover page. Finalist and Best Paper selections will be made by a panel of judges.

If you have any questions, please email Jeremy McLaughlin at Jeremy.mclaughlin {at} sjsu.edu

Student Research Paper Award details:                                                                                      http://bit.ly/SIGStudentRsrch

Student Research Paper Award Submission Form:                                        http://goo.gl/forms/tSFJjckVId

Notes from the ARLIS/NA-MW Virtual Conference

On November 15th, ARLIS/NA-MW hosted the virtual conference Wide Angle: Perspectives on Visual + Media Arts Information. Here are some highlights from two of the talks that were presented.

Nicole Beatty, the Arts & Humanities Librarian at Weber State University, gave the presentation titled Digital Humanities: What is it and what does it mean for scholars and librarians? She noted that while the definition of what constitutes the Digital Humanities is still in flux, it is generally thought to refer to the use of a wide range of technologies to support research and education in the humanities. The technology used can include digitization, data visualization, geo-spatial mapping, cloud computing, social media, and more.

Some interesting examples of geo-spatial mapping include SFMOMA’s ArtScope and Mapping Gothic France. This blog shows some of the interesting possibilities when using data visualization to explore the collection of the Tate Galleries.

If you’re wondering where to find the tools for creating these projects, Beatty recommends Bamboo Dirt as a great place to start. This site lists a registry of digital research tools, and can help scholars find the software that fits their needs. If funding is an issue, as it often is, the National Endowment for the Humanities provides grants for those interested in pursuing projects in the digital humanities. We will likely see the number of projects in the digital humanities increase in the future, as Beatty explains that including these kinds of multi-media resources in instruction can help students to engage with the material in new ways.

Another presentation, titled From Commons to Open Content: New Perspectives on Visual Resources in the Public Trust, was given by Allana Mayer, MLIS Candidate from McGill University. She discussed the concept of Open Access, referring to content that may be used, reused and redistributed, often with certain restrictions.

One project Mayer discussed was the Library of Congress photostream on Flickr, a collection of images with no known copyright restrictions. The project started with 3,000 images, with 50 added every week, and approximately 75 institutions contributing since 2008. These images are suitable for reuse on websites and the like, but are not sufficiently high-quality to be used in a larger format. The Library of Congress invited Flickr users to tag and comment on photos, thereby learning more about images that formerly had little metadata associated with them. The project has stopped accepting new institutions, and is not currently expanding.

Another is the open content offered by the Rijksmuseum, which began with 125,000 images. These are high-quality images, but are offered under a non-commercial copyright restriction. The Rijksmuseum has also launched apps for creating content using their images. The Getty’s Open Content Program is another exciting recent initiative, with over 10,000 images available, requesting only that attribution be given to the Getty when an image is reproduced. NGA Images of The National Gallery of Art is a third excellent source of open access images, with over 29,000 images available for non-commercial use.

While there are legal issues to take into consideration when launching initiatives such as these, Mayer notes that many museum curators believe in the importance of sharing high-quality images of works of art with as wide an audience as possible.

The above links and more will be collected on ArLiSNAP’s pinterest page. For other useful links about digital humanities projects, follow our Technology pinboard; for open content links, have a look on the Open Access Images pinboard.

Defining the Digital Humanities event at Columbia University

What do digital humanities scholars see as the potential of this interdisciplinary field?

Find out.

Defining the Digital Humanities
Wednesday, April 6, 2011, 12:00-2:00 PM
555 Lerner Hall, Morningside

Guests who do not have a Columbia University ID must RSVP to kp2002@columbia.edu by Tuesday, April 5.

Panelists include Dan Cohen, Director of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University; Federica Frabetti, Senior Lecturer in the Communication, Media and Culture Program at Oxford Brookes University, UK; and Dino Buzzetti, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Bologna. More information.

RESEARCH WITHOUT BORDERS EVENT SERIES
The Scholarly Communication Program at CU Libraries/Information Services presents a speaker series for the 2010-11 academic year on today’s pivotal issues in scholarly communication.

Join us for the third year of events exploring changes in how scholars and researchers create, share, reuse, and preserve new knowledge. The series is free and open to the public.

For more info, email Kathryn Pope at kp2002@columbia.edu, or visit http://scholcomm.columbia.edu.

Follow the events remotely on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ScholarlyComm.