In this week’s reading, Domink Bonisch discusses how digital practices can be incorporated into a museum setting. The development of a prototype within the context of the “AI school” of the Foundation of Lower Saxony. This early model uses pre-trained networks that were originally designed for image classification to group and sort digitized artworks. By extracting features from image data based on visual and technical characteristics, it can sort images based on colors, structures, textures, shapes, and objects.
The goal with the project is to bridge the “semantic gap” between the representation of art as a digital image and their actual content. This gap often requires prior knowledge to interpret. The “Training the Archive” project wants to narrow the gap by investigating if machine learning, specifically artificial neural networks (ANNs), can expand clusters of artworks to include hidden connection patterns, personal intuition, and potentially override the subjective expertise of curators. The process involves supervised learning, where human expertise guides the machine’s suggestions, especially in cases that require historical, stylistic, and object-based contextual knowledge. This facet was interesting, in a way, it would seem cruel to teach your replacement to do your job better than you can, but with AI.
The text mentions an experiment, considered a Proof of Concept (PoC), to determine if unsupervised clusters of artworks can be altered through supervised training with human-made annotations about relationships between artworks. The success of the concept is considered successful if it can accurately and subjectively make changes in cluster sorting.
To develop this prototype, data from the Danish National Gallery Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK), publicly accessible since 2019, was used. The museum’s digital collection offers a wide range of classical and contemporary artworks in various media, including painting, prints, sculpture, installation, and applied arts. The museum provides access to its data through an Application Programming Interface (API), containing meta-information for over 70,000 digitized items.
Tim Sherrat and Kate Bagnet provide an example of the way that digitization can be applied to large scale projects. They are using a database of records related to people. Their project, “The Real Faces of White Australia” seeks to provide a new way of understanding these records, by shifting the focus from bureaucratic processes to the lives of individuals. The interface features photographs linked to original certificates and serves as a finding aid. The article also highlights the importance of the interface in the context of archival work. It suggests that the interface can challenge the existing power dynamics within archives and allow users to engage with records in meaningful ways. In this case, the interface was created independently, privileging the online availability of the collection database.
Sherrat emphasizes the transformative potential of technology in archives. Digitization and keyword searching enable users to access records in new ways, moving beyond traditional institutional structures and hierarchies. This shift can provide fresh insights into society and individual lives. The passage mentions the “Unknown No Longer” project, which aims to extract names and biographical details of slaves from historical documents held by the Virginia Historical Society. This project exemplifies the use of technology to reveal hidden histories and empower individuals to reclaim their heritage and history.
https://www.friendsofnotredamedeparis.org/virtual-tour-notre-dame/
I chose to link the Friends of Notre Dame digital project which provides a digital, 3D tour of Notre Dame of Paris. I like that the “tour” starts outside, so the viewer can walk through the portals. Digital architecture allows people to understand the architecture as a physical building, rather than a singular object on a projector in a classroom. The project allows visitors to explore through areas that most people would not typically be able to visit. They also have a video model showing the construction history of the cathedral. Since the exterior has changed so frequently throughout history. These are both useful tools for scholars to utilize as they consider the cathedral as a living object. However, the easily accessible layout would make it easy for people who are just curious about Notre Dame to learn from and enjoy the site.
This week, our readings focused on the possibilities of digital art history. Howard Besser, Sally Hubbard, and Deborah Lenert in Introduction to Imaging discuss the rapid advancements of digital technology and its potential, including holographic storage, and automated management algorithms for art. The authors emphasize the need for handling heterogeneity in archives and the changing digital environment via the applications of open standards practices. They also address the importance of refining documentation standards for images, strategies for preservation repositories, issues of Web accessibility, intellectual property concerns, and the potential for digital imaging to provide wider access to cultural heritage.
Emma Sanford’s article “A Field Guide to Digital Surrogates: Evaluating and Contextualizing a Rapidly Changing Resource,” describes the historical example of Adolf Neubauer, who had to choose which Hebrew manuscript fragments to acquire, and how some scholars initially rejected fragments that became valuable for research. Digitization complicates this selection process, as institutions have to consider factors like the object’s condition, cataloging status, and potential impact. Her article highlights how digitization is often funded, with disparities due to geographic and political factors, as well as how external funding influences priorities in archival and art historical projects. She also emphasizes the need for institutions to document and address more sensitive factors, seek funding for critical and historically underfunded projects, as well as invest in electronic cataloging to complement digital collections.
Sanford also discusses how digitization leaves out certain details or context, such as textural information or non-visual clues. Digital surrogates of art objects are noted for providing a specific interpretation of the original, which can be influenced by factors like restoration efforts or the desire to showcase the object in a particular way. There are also limitations of two-dimensional digitization and how it doesn’t capture the full three-dimensional qualities and historical aspects of objects. It suggests that careful observation of user habits can help create more accurate digital surrogates, but there is no one-size-fits-all approach. However, Sandford suggests the International Image Interoperability Framework as a solution for creating versatile and collaborative digitized collections, mentioning specific tools and viewers designed for art interpretation.
Some of the images that Sanford uses to make really compelling arguments for the importance of digitization were really poignant. As a scholar, I felt like her argument was really clear and very compelling. The importance of digital imaging is crucial for future generations to study art, but feels antithetical to previous art historical practices. Part of the joy of art history is studying ephemera, and scholars seem to give special attention to objects that are the “first” or the “only” of a kind. By digitizing, these labels seem to be removed, but Sanford is correct that there is more benefit to accessibility of these objects than keeping the curtains up around these objects.
Digitization practices are good for everyone. It always amazes me how often scholars have no idea who the people are in portraits. Even in my own family, it only takes a couple generations before the names and relationships of people in family photos are lost to time. In the spirit of that, I have chosen to upload a picture of my grandmother and me. I hope that future art historians will look at this picture and think, “what a cute kid”. Kidding.
In seriousness, Sanford’s discussion of ephemera should strike fear into the hearts of those who are interested in family history. My grandchildren or great children will probably have no idea who is sitting in this photo. Knowing who is sitting for the photo is half the battle of family histories, and by not knowing, you may as well not have the photo at all. Fires, moving, or misplacing can also result in the loss of the photo and digitization is a way to save (assuming flash drives, the cloud, and the technology are all cooperating) your photos.
