quadrivium - michelle smith collaboratory · quadrivium is a monthly digest of digital art history...
TRANSCRIPT
“Literature is Not Data”
as well as a rebuttal.
This debate is largely
devoted to computation-
al analysis of literature,
but the questions raised
are relevant topics for all
humanists. Moretti is
certainly pleased that
art historians are joining
the digital world, com-
menting “It's a little
claustrophobic in our
field.”
Can artworks be data?
What do we lose from
quantification? And
what do we gain?
What’s in a name? Quite
a lot, if you ask literary
scholar Franco Moretti.
“[The term] ‘digital
humanities’ seems
astoundingly inappro-
priate,” he says, “for an
area of study that in-
cludes, on the one hand,
computational research,
digital reading and writ-
ing platforms, digital
pedagogy, open-access
publishing, augmented
texts, and literary data-
bases, and, on the other,
media archaeology and
theories of networks,
gaming, and wares both
hard and soft.”
Moretti is the author of
two books that argue for
computational analysis
in the humanities:
Graphs, Maps and Trees
(2007) and Distant Read-
ing (2013). The LA
Times Review of Books
interviewed him in their
March 2 issue, continu-
ing a long conversation
about digital humanities
within their pages.
They’ve featured both
sides of the issue, pub-
lishing a controversial
editorial in 2012 called
DH in the la times review of books
Thanks Obama! Gov’t offers open data
“Open data” is a hot
topic in DAH and DH,
particularly as a grow-
ing number of museums
and other cultural
institutions make their
collections information
available online.
This push is part of a
larger social movement
towards freedom of
information. Wired mag-
azine reports on a new
open data initiative
spearheaded by the
White House, called
“The Opportunity
Project.” The goal?
Empowering creative
developers to make
apps that serve the
public good.
The article quotes a
thought-provoking
statement by Chief US
Data Scientist DJ Patil:
“We should think of
technology as neither
radical nor revolution-
ary, unless it impacts
every single person.”
Accessibility is the key.
a monthly digital art history digest
Friday, March 25 Volume 1, Issue 2
Quadrivium
Featured this week:
All about open data and
computational analysis!
Links to available data
sets and best practices for
building your own sets!
Plus, a hands-on guide
for making your own
interactive screen!
Inside this issue:
Cover story 1
Open data 1-2
Museums 2-3
Hands-on 3
Opportunities 4
Because plotting data by hand is the worst.
The French government has
also made large data sets
available to the public, in-
cluding a long list of build-
ings designated as historical
monuments.
The Monumentes historiques
application created by
French developers (Antidot)
makes use of this open data
as well as other information
from the semantic web,
accessing seven different
sources to provide tour-
ists with an easy-to-use
guide to thousands of
French monuments. Their
blog, linked above,
explains how they did it.
And the application is
online and ready to use!
the user to “move
through a landscape
made of artworks” as if
they were a geographical
map, but organized by
purchase date rather than
physical location in the
museum. It’s a fascinat-
ing—and gorgeous—way
to explore and discover.
Graphs and charts are traditional
methods of data visualization,
but there are many more options.
The San Francisco-based design
firm Stamen has created a new
way of looking at museum
collections—one that keeps the
focus on the artworks without
losing the scope of big data. The
“SFMOMA Artscope” allows
Exploring French monuments with open data
Sfmoma artscope: a different kind of map
Quantifying the museum of modern art
a simple, entertaining
introduction to the ma-
nipulation of museum
open data. As he points
out, Van Gogh’s master-
piece “Starry Night”
goes by another title in
museum records:
“ObjectID 79802,” just
one painting out of
thousands. When we
consider each painting
in the MoMA as a data
point in a larger narra-
tive rather than a work
of individual genius, we
can ask different ques-
tions and get different
answers. Roeder
presents a couple of
graphs as examples,
mostly focusing on
materials, dimensions,
and the collecting prac-
tices of the museum.
This can help us under-
stand how each works
fits into the big picture.
Statistician Nate Silver
became a household name
for his political analysis,
but his website FiveThir-
tyEight takes number
crunching far beyond elec-
tions. One offering from
staff writer Oliver Roeder
is “A Nerd’s Guide to the
2,229 Paintings at MoMA.”
Leaving aside fraught dis-
cussions of the term
“nerd,” Roeder’s article is
“At the museum
today, we’re armed
not only with our love
of art, but also with
this big pile of data.
We’ll appreciate the
beauty, to be sure. But
if you have questions,
I’ll also turn to the
hard numbers for
answers.“
Page 2
Quadrivium
Discover this thirteenth-century abbey via the app!
So you want to get into
the data analysis game?
You can start with an
open data set, but you
can also create your own
set on the subject of
your choice.
As you might imagine,
you’ll need to start off
with a spreadsheet.
However, proceed with
caution: the categories
and vocabulary that you
choose at the outset can
make or break your
project.
As part of a workshop
held at the Michelle
Smith Collaboratory for
Visual Culture, UMD
grad student Matthew
Lincoln has created a
succinct, helpful guide
to building tidy data
sets that can be easily
read by software.
Above all, do not be
afraid to build a sprawl-
ing spreadsheet. As
Matt says in his presen-
tation, stick to “one vari-
able per column and one
observation per row.” A
data set with fifteen
columns may give you a
headache, but your
software will read it
quite easily.
This rule is reminiscent
Best practices for tidy data
Make your own interactive screen
galleries that want to
embrace new media, but
are restricted by their
budgets. They are also
fun projects for students
looking to build their
resume skills.
Sear provides several
different tutorials, but
the “Interactive Screen”
is a great place to start.
In his words: “Large
museums can easily
spend upwards of £50K
on a large touch screen
display setup and cus-
tom software. This pro-
ject demonstrates how
to build a simple version
for less than £400.”
Software is fun, but why
not try dabbling in hard-
ware, too? Developer
John Sear, a techie
working in the realms of
games as well as
museums, has a number
of DIY museum-tech
tutorials on his website.
These are great solutions
for small museums and
On the left, you’ll
find one possible
spreadsheet
format suggested
in the tidy data
tutorial. Data like
this combines
“traditional” art
historical
approaches with
computational
analysis. One
cannot not replace
the other!
Page 3
Volume 1, Issue 2
of the old computer science
mantra “garbage in, garbage
out.” If you don’t put solid
information into your data set,
you aren’t going to get solid
information out on the other
side. Be detail-oriented, proof-
read, and when in doubt—
write yourself a note. Your
future self won’t remember all
of your choices along the way,
so keep a record of your
process as you go!
E-mail: [email protected]
Twitter: @MSCollaboratory
@UMDArtHistory
@corpusbones
Michelle Smith Collaboratory for
Visual Culture
4213 Parren Mitchell Art/
Sociology Building
College Park, MD 20742
Quadrivium is a monthly digest of digital art history news produced by Lind-
say Dupertuis, a Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland, College Park. It
is supported by the Michelle Smith Collaboratory for Visual Culture, located
within the Department of Art History and Archaeology.
Quadrivium aims to share interesting projects and new tools in digital art
history (DAH) and digital humanities (DH) with a broad audience of readers.
Ideally, the newsletter will inspire readers to explore the field on their own
and consider how these new methods might change their approach to the
humanities. We welcome comments and contributions!
Visualizing Venice Summer School, June 8-20, 2016
Supported by The Getty Foundation, The Wired! Lab at Duke University, Università Iuav di Venezia, the University of
Padua, and Venice International University are collaborating on a Summer Workshop that will train Art, Architectural
and Urban Historians with the digital media that can enhance or transform their research questions and their capacity to
communicate narratives about objects, places and spaces to the public. This fifth annual 12-day workshop teaches a
range of digital skills in mapping, 3D modeling, mobile application & web development, and time based media author-
ship to enable participants to engage historical questions with emerging digital tools. The course will engage with the
Ghetto of Venice on the 500th anniversary of its creation as case study for training with a variety of technologies and
applications.
Wading in DAH Water: A Digital Art History Workshop for Curious Beginners
The Michelle Smith Collaboratory’s DAH workshop will return for its second year on May 23-27, 2016. Conceived as a
gentle and easy introduction to some facets of digital art history, akin to slowly entering a swimming pool via the shal-
low section, this four-day event will cover some of the more popular areas of DAH, such as mapping, virtual modeling,
augmented reality, online exhibitions, database-building and visualization. All are welcome!
Upcoming Opportunities