Presented by John Taormina at the Annual Conference of the Visual Resources Association, April 3rd - April 6th, 2013, in Providence, Rhode Island.
Session #12: Making the Digital Humanities Visual: Opportunities and Case Studies
ORGANIZER/MODERATOR: Sarah Christensen, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
PRESENTERS:
John Taormina, Duke University
Sarah Christensen, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Massimo Riva, Brown University
Endorsed by the Education Committee
The digital humanities are shaping the way that scholars teach and perform research, providing them with tools to answer existing research questions or to pioneer new approaches in their respective fields. This session seeks to explore opportunities in which visual resources professionals can contribute to or initiate digital humanities projects, utilizing specialized knowledge in visual media to form new partnerships with interdisciplinary collaborators.
John Taormina from Duke University will speak about his experience as part of a discussion group called “Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts: Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age,” which addressed new media technologies in art history research and teaching with a focus on digital literacy, pedagogy, and scholarly viability. The group met for two years and gained interest from faculty and staff from across campus, and resulted in a week long workshop that has now been offered both at Duke and at Venice International University.
Sarah Christensen from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will discuss “Explore CU,” an Omeka based mobile app developed by researchers at Cleveland State University. The mobile app and accompanying Omeka site aims to curate the art, culture, and history of Champaign-Urbana through community contributed content.
Massimo Riva, Director of the Virtual Humanities Lab at Brown University, will present the Garibaldi Panorama Project. This project is a “digital archive that seeks to provide a comprehensive resource for the interdisciplinary study and teaching of the life and deeds of one of the protagonists of the Italian unification process (1807-1882), against the historical backdrop of 19th-century Europe, reconstructed with the help of materials from special collections at the Brown University libraries. The project will devote particular attention to the way Garibaldi’s figure, his actions and the Italian Risorgimento as a whole were portrayed in contemporary media.”
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VRA 2013 Digital Humanities, Taormina
1. Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
John J. Taormina • Duke University
VRA 2013
2. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Colloquium 2009-10, 2010-11
6 Original Co-conveners:
• Rachel Brady (computer science: visualization)
• Caroline Bruzelius (art and architectural history: medieval)
• Sheila Dillon (art history/archaeology: classical)
• Mark Olson (visual studies: new media)
• Raquel Salvatella de Prada (visual arts: computer graphics)
• John Taormina (visual resources: image management)
3. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Colloquium 2009-10, 2010-11
Mission of Colloquium:
Expand and develop our collaborations, conversations, and
reflections on the implication of new technologies for the
field of material culture. The colloquium theme would focus
on rethinking teaching with new technologies in both
undergraduate and graduate programs.
4. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Logistics
• Franklin Humanities Institute (FHI) Discussion Group Grants
• Group met every two weeks at lunchtime
• University faculty, staff, and students were often invited
• Outside speakers for public lectures and group discussions
• A number of themes for discussion were decided early on
5. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Invited Guests
• Faculty and graduate students from Art, Art History & Visual
Studies and Classical Studies
• Deputy director of IT in Duke Libraries
• Fine arts librarian, GIS librarian
• Scholarly communication officer in Duke Libraries
6. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Invited Guests
• University’s digital strategist
• Computer scientists from Visualization Technology Group
• Editor of Duke Press
• Faculty from University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, NC State
University, and NC Central University
7. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Public Lectures
Maurizio Forte, University of California-Merced (now at Duke)
“Experiencing the Past: Cyber-Heritage, Research and Education”
8. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Public Lectures
Arnie Flatten, Coastal Carolina University
“Pixels, Paint and Pylons: Integrating Teaching, Technology and
Training in Art History”
10. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Wired! Visualizing the Past
2009 Course Project: Classical (Instr: Sheila Dillon)
“Reconstructing the Past: The Statue Landscape of the Hadrianic
Baths at Aphrodisias”
—Elizabeth Baltes, Umberto Plaja, Akara Lee, Catherine Stanley
11. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Wired! Visualizing the Past
2009 Course Project: Medieval (Instr: Caroline Bruzelius)
“San Francesco a Folloni, Campania, Italy”
—Michal Kosinski and Rebecca Wood
12. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Technologies + Humanities
• Training and assumptions about how knowledge is organized
and taught are being shattered by the possibilities of new
technologies
• The evolution of a site/building could be represented over time
• Topics could be taught in new and more effective ways
• Potential of new technologies to communicate scholarly
research
13. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Technologies + Humanities
• Student acquire new technical skills while engaging with
primary research materials to create new interpretations of
the data
• By engaging in hands-on reconstructions of a site/building,
students become active rather than passive learners
14. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Duke Visual Studies Initiative (2007-2012)
“Visual Studies at Duke operates at the interface of
science, social sciences, and the humanities.”
15. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Topics Considered for Discussion
• Digital literacy
• Pedagogical practices
• Spatial history (movement through time)
• Evidence and attribution
• Learning the technical tools
• Participatory learning
16. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Topics Considered for Discussion (continued)
• Public colloquia
• Entertainment vs. scholarship
• Collaborative teaching and research vs. single engagement
• Presentation of the product
• Scholarly validity and viability
17. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Year 1: Final Topics for Discussion
• Digital literacy (fall)
• Pedagogy (winter)
• Scholarly viability (spring)
18. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Digital Literacy
In attendance:
• Co-conveners
• Computer science faculty who teach in Information Science +
Information Studies (ISIS) Program
• Deputy director of IT in Duke Libraries
19. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Digital Literacy (continued)
• What level of competence and/or understanding of theories
behind the tools is required?
• Is there a specific set of skills we can identify that we want
students to have?
20. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Digital Literacy (continued)
• Mapping: Google Maps, Google Earth
• Timeline: Flash, Final Cut, AfterEffect
• 2D: layer-based software, Photoshop, Illustrator, Sketch-Up,
coloring and modeling softare
• 3D: SecondLife, Croquet, VirTour, Sketch-Up, Maya, AutoCad,
Foto-3D
21. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Pedagogy
In attendance:
• Co-conveners
• Faculty and students from Art, Art History & Visual Studies and
Classical Studies
• Scholarly communication officer from Libraries
• Fine arts librarian
22. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Pedagogy (continued)
• The “transparency of digital constructions”
• What is the evidence? How can it be displayed?
• What are the aesthetic issues?
• Citation and the nature of evidence and display
• Spatial history and archaeography: transparent, documented, and
scholarly viable new medium
• Building in interactivity and its implications
23. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Pedagogy (continued)
Working with different media requires different tools:
• Sculpture, in situ or displaced (placement, modeling, coloration)
• Architecture (reconstruction, depicting change over time)
• Painting (in situ frescoes, altarpieces)
• Cities/urbanism/urban spaces (mapping)
24. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Pedagogy (continued)
• How to solve training issues:
—Baseline set of IT skills and literacy
—Build an online repository of discipline-specific tutorials that
integrate with other training modules such as Lynda.com
—Public workshops
• Equilibrium between traditional learning (chronology, style, theory)
and what is possible with new media technologies
25. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Scholarly Viability
In attendance:
• Co-conveners
• Other faculty and students (from Duke, UNC-CH, NCSU, NCCU)
• University’s digital strategist
• Editor of Duke Press
• Scholarly communication officer from Libraries
26. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Scholarly Viability (continued)
• Can digital projects be considered for tenure and promotion?
• Is there an expectation that they are ancillary to the written
document?
• What is a “good” product?
• Issues around “collaborative work” for tenure and promotion
• Scholarly communication and new media journals
27. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
2013: Wired! Visualizing the Past
www.dukewired.org
Original Wired! Group:
Rachel Brady, Caroline Bruzelius, Sheila
Dillon, Raquel Salvatella de Prada, Mark
Olson
28. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Wired! Visualizing the Past
“On with Their Heads: Creation, Destruction and
Recontextualization”
—Iara Dundas, Elizabeth Narkin, Tim Prizer
29. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Wired! Visualizing the Past
30. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Wired! Visualizing the Past
The Wired! Group is committed to engaging digital
technologies in courses and long-term research
initiatives, training students at all levels in order to ask
research questions about material culture in the man-made
environment. Our courses fuse technologies with the study
of sculpture, architecture, urbanism, and painting in order to
prepare our students for the 21st century.
31. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Wired! Visualizing the Past
Wired! is also committed to communicating research
knowledge to a broad public. Our integration of
visualization technologies into the regular curriculum
represents structural and systemic change in the way
knowledge is interrogated in teaching and research.
32. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
Wired! Visualizing the Past
Wired! projects fuse questions in the Humanities (as
traditionally construed) with social, economic, and political
issues. Our work engages the viewer in novel ways that
revolutionize the role of learning in relation to the
public. We are committed to making scholarship available
and engaging to a broad audience.
33. Reconfiguring Knowledge in the Digital Age
Digital Technologies and the Visual Arts
The Wired! Lab
• Half million dollar grant from the
Office of the Provost
• Lab, hardware and software,
one IT support staff person
• Opened November 2011