Presentation in Coding Dürer, International Hackathon for Art History. (Munich, March 13-17, 2017). [http://codingdurer.de]

1. CODING DÜRER’17
Nuria Rodríguez Ortega
nro@uma.es
University of Málaga
On Methods to Analyse and
Visualize Data
(A general framework)

2. CODING DÜRER’17
Nuria Rodríguez Ortega
nro@uma.es
Universidad de Málaga

3. CODING DÜRER’17
Questions
WHERE CAN WE FIND DATA?
HOW TO MANAGE DATA?
HOW TO INTERPRET DATA?

4. WHERE TO FIND DATA?
CODING DÜRER’17
WHERE TO FIND DATA?
Questions
Already existing data collections and databases
Cultural domains without structured datasets available =
aggregation of structured data and metada is needed
User-generated, social-produced data on Internet

5. CODING DÜRER’17
HOW TO MANAGE DATA?
Data representation
HOW TO MANAGE DATA? Skills needed
1. Data representation / Modelling cultural phenomena
1.1. Questions to bear in mind/ Decisions
What are the boundaries?
What are the objects?
What are the attributes?
How do objects interrelate among them?
1.2. Transforming analog objects and concepts into discrete
data
Object’s decomposition into attributes and variables

6. Evolución temporal de los géneros
Source: Suárez, J.L. et al. «Towards a Digital Geography of Hispanic Baroque Art», LLC, n. 13, 2013.
http://www.cultureplex.ca/publication/towards-a-digital-geography-of-hispanic-baroque-art/
CODING DÜRER’17
HOW TO MANAGE DATA?
Data representation
Change of perspective: from the object as entity to a set of correlated attributes
Baroque pictorial production represented as semantic maps configured
by clusters of commun attributes

7. CODING DÜRER’17
How to manage data?
Data representation
HOW TO MANAGE DATA? Skills needed
1. Data representation / modelling cultural phenomena
1.3. Bias & Transparency: potential and/or real biases, complete
datasets and algorithms should always be made available
1.4. Understanding of data as cultural construct
New questions & new decisions:
- How to express cultural complexity in terms of structured data?
- How to build more flexible structured datasets?
- How to categorize uncertain and ambiguous concepts?
- How to express missing data?

8. Source:http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/ulan/
CODING DÜRER’17
Understanding of data as cultural construct
Data representation
How to express the multiple sexual identities beyond the
traditional binary categorization?

9. Source:http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/ulan/
CODING DÜRER’17
Understanding of data as cultural construct
Data representation
How to express hybrid identities beyond a
list of different nationalities?

10. Source:http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/
CODING DÜRER’17
Understanding of data as cultural construct
Data representation
How to express the multiple conversations and perspective
that converge on cultural objects beyond the «objective» attributes?

11. CODING DÜRER’17
How to manage data?
Techniques and methodologies
HOW TO MANAGE DATA? Skills needed
2. Techniques and methodologies
Conceptual understanding of the techniques’ internal logics
Integration of computational thinking model into the
intellectual approach to cultural problems
2.1. Methodology concerns how cultural phenomena are approached. It is a
matter of concept that goes beyond the use of specific techniques

12. CODING DÜRER’17
How to manage data?
Techniques and methodologies

13. CODING DÜRER’17
How to manage data?
Techniques and methodologies
HOW TO MANAGE DATA? Skills needed
2. Techniques and methodologies
Conceptual understanding of the techniques’ internal logics
Integration of computational thinking model into the
intellectual approach to cultural problems
2.1. Methodology concerns how cultural phenomena are approached. It is a
matter of concept that goes beyond the use of specific techniques
2.2. Experimentation and exploration: researching on new techniques and
analysis strategies to face specific art-historical issues

14. CODING DÜRER’17
How to manage data?
Visualizations
HOW TO MANAGE DATA? Skills needed
3. Visualizations
3.1. Generative and interpretative models: new hermeneutics based on
heuristic visualizations
3.2. Experimentation and exploration: new types of visualizations for
displaying cultural complexity

15. Source: http://dh.stanford.edu/topotime/
CODING DÜRER’17
Temporality expressed in a more complex way than linear timeline
How to manage data?
Visualizations

16. CODING DÜRER’17
How to manage data?
Visualizations
HOW TO MANAGE DATA? Skills needed
3. Visualizations
3.1. Generative and interpretative models: new hermeneutics based on
heuristic visualizations
3.2. Experimentation and exploration: new types of visualizations for
displaying cultural complexity
3.3. New forms of communication (hipermedial, interactive, dynamic, etc.) are
needed to expand comprehension and to engage people

17. Source: https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2012/inventingabstraction/
CODING DÜRER’17
From interactive platforms…
How to manage data?
Visualizations

18. Source: Schich, M. et al. (2014), «A Network Framework of Cultural History», Science, 345 (6196), 558-562.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gIhRkCcD4U
CODING DÜRER’17
… to animations….
How to manage data?
Visualizations

19. CODING DÜRER’17
Let collaborate with digital artists,
visual designers, digital literature
practitioners…
How to manage data?
Visualizations

20. CODING DÜRER’17
HOW TO INTERPRETE DATA?
HOW TO INTERPRET DATA?
How to make new arguments, how to pose new questions,
how to build new stories…?
Quantitative analysis + critical narratives: data needs to be
placed within frameworks of meaning

21. Source: Lincoln, M. & Forx, A. «The Temporal Dimensions of the London Art Auction, 1780-1835», British Art Studies (Nov., 2016).
http://britishartstudies.ac.uk/issues/issue-index/issue-4/london-art-auction-1870-1835
CODING DÜRER’17
HOW TO INTERPRET DATA?
Metrics do not means anything by themselves… so…
it is time to discover the stories behind…

22. CODING DÜRER’17
HOW TO INTERPRETE DATA?
HOW TO INTERPRET DATA?
How can we interrogate the data sources? Which are the
new questions?
How are traditional questions reshaped?
Which interpretative frameworks could we apply?

23. CODING DÜRER’17
HOW TO INTERPRETE DATA?
Some examples

24. CODING DÜRER’17
HOW TO INTERPRETE DATA?
From the particular to the structures,
patterns and underlying logics

25. Cluster 1: Picasso’s
solo and group shows
Clusters 11, 12, 13, 14: Dalí, Goya, Miró and
Tàpies solo shows and some group shows
Cluster 4: Old
Masters exhibitions
Cluster 8: 19th-
century masters
exhibitions
Clusters 2, 3, 5, 6, 7
9, 10, 15: Modern and
Contemporary Art exhibtions
Hierarchical clustering = Expofinder corpus (Occurrence ≥ 21)
(Ward's method with Chi-squared distance)
Sources: www.exhibitium.com
www.expofinder.es © Exhibitium Project
Is the chronological
parameter one of the main
factors underlying selection
processes in curatorial
practices?
Is there an interplay
between the association
processes and the
understanding of western art
tradition?

26. Scatter plot (clusters 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 y 15)
Mapping 508
exhibitions and 358
artists (≥6 ocurrence)
Sources: www.exhibitium.com
www.expofinder.es © Exhibitium Project

27. CODING DÜRER’17
HOW TO INTERPRETE DATA?
Multiscale perspectives

28. Source: Pamela and Helmreich, Anne. “Local / Global Mapping Nineteenth-Century London's Art Market”.
Nineteeth-century Art World-Wide. A Journal of nineteenth-Century Visual Culture, 11, 3 (2012).
Available in: http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/index.php/autumn12/fletcher-helmreich-mapping-the-london-art-market#_ftnref14
Micro-local + macro-global perspectives about London art market: what is made
visible and what is obscured in each case?

29. CODING DÜRER’17
HOW TO INTERPRETE DATA?
Formal models and regular laws: exploring
connections and disconnections with
systems’ operating logics

30. Source: Bender, K. «Distant view in Art History. A Case Study of Artistic Productivity», Digital Art History
Journal, n. 1, 2015, pp. 100-110.
Available in: http://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/dah/article/view/21639
Lotka’s law underlying artistic productivity: materials for the development of
socieconomic models of creativity in the artistic production field
CODING DÜRER’17
HOW TO INTERPRET DATA?

31. CODING DÜRER’17 HOW TO INTERPRETE DATA?
Subverting traditional art-historical
categories through network analysis

32. Source: Lincoln, Matthew D. “The Art Historian's Macroscope: Museum Data and the Academy."
Matthew Lincoln, PhD (blog), 21 May 2015.
http://matthewlincoln.net/2015/05/21/the-art-historians-macroscope.html
CODING DÜRER’17 HOW TO INTERPRET DATA?
From artistic excellence
to centrality and
mediation
From individuality to
relationality
From independent objects
to large cultural systems
The unknown
Jonas Suyderhoef issue

33. CODING DÜRER’17 HOW TO INTERPRETE DATA?
Extensive approach vs aprioristic selection
processes

34. Source: Bode, K., Reading by Numbers (2013), 62-70
CODING DÜRER’17 HOW TO INTERPRET DATA?
Challenging the scholarly accepted theory of the preminence of British publishing
industry over the Australian one when considering the vast corpus of pulp fiction
novels
Critical reflection on traditional
concepts of canon as well as on
the discursive conditions of
marginalities and peripheries

35. CODING DÜRER’17 HOW TO INTERPRETE DATA?
New concepts of spatiality

36. Evolución temporal de los géneros
Mapas semánticos
New Geographies of Art: Algorithmic Spaces vs Traditional Geographic Constrains
and Geopolitical Borders
CODING DÜRER’17 HOW TO INTERPRET DATA?
Source: Suárez, J.L. et al. «Towards a Digital Geography of Hispanic Baroque Art», LLC, n. 13, 2013.
http://www.cultureplex.ca/publication/towards-a-digital-geography-of-hispanic-baroque-art/

37. Museo Reina Sofía’s
exhibition network
Exhibitions held in Spain
(2010-2016)
USA
Spain
Western Europe
Latin America
Others
© Exhibitium Project
CODING DÜRER’17 HOW TO INTERPRET DATA?
Is this a Spanish space?
Challeging the
traditional national/international
categories
Sources: www.exhibitium.com
www.expofinder.es

38. Source: http://ubimark.info/usart/
CODING DÜRER’17 HOW TO INTERPRET DATA?
Geographical distribution of large datasets: new ways to explore spatiality from
a heuristic perspective

39. Frédéric Bazille’s Studio 9 Rue de la Condamine (left) and Norman Rockwell’s Shuffleton’s Barber Shop (right)
Source:https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/
CODING DÜRER’17 HOW TO INTERPRET DATA?
Image processing: Is the same to detect visual matches
than to establish artistic influences?

40. 1 • Representation and transparency
2
• Experimentation and innovation
3
• Quantification processes + qualitative inquiries
4
• Attributes and variables vs objects (independent entities)
5
• Structures and patterns + formal models and regular laws
6 • Relationality vs individuality (large cultural systems)
7
• Multiscale perspective
8
• New geographies and spatial concepts
CODING DÜRER’17 SUMMARIZING…