Author: Lisa Chisholm

[Open Hours Discussion] Analogue archaeology and the digital toolkit | Dr Tim Thomas

Join us on Friday 7th June as we host another Open Hours session between 1 and 2pm at the Digital Humanities Hub | Te Pokapū Matihiko o Te Kete Aronui!

Topic  – Analogue archaeology and the digital toolkit

Our guest this week is Dr Tim Thomas from the Department of Archaeology at Otago. He will be discussing his experiences in using digital technologies within Archaeology and sharing some of the projects he’s been working on.

Tim’s work is often interdisciplinary and uses multiple sources of data, including archaeological evidence, oral history, and archival records. He has experience in using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and through various research projects has been working with new digital forms of data collection, documentation and dissemination – including the use of a drone to map and 3D model landscapes.

Reading

These readings discuss the importance, and limitations, of preserving cultural monuments and heritage sites around the world (at risk from natural disasters, war, tourism or urbanisation) and how advancing technology such as 3D scans and drones are assisting Archaeologists, Researchers, Libraries, Museums and nonprofit organisations around the world to achieve this.

Google Unveils Incredibly Detailed 3D Models of At-Risk Heritage Sites

Preservationists race to capture cultural monuments with 3D images

Projects

Open Heritage  – Open Heritage is an initiative to provide free access to high resolution 3D data of cultural heritage sites across the world. It is a joint project between CyArk, Historic Environment Scotland and the University of South Florida Libraries. This includes two 3D models and data sets from New Zealand Waitangi Treaty Grounds- Waitangi – Ngātokimatawhaorua and Waitangi – Te Whare Rūnanga.

 

WHEN: 1pm – 2pm, Friday 7th June 2019

WHERE: Digital Humanities Hub, Room 1W3, First Floor, Arts Building

WHO: Anyone in the University community – there’s no advance registration required, but we always appreciate knowing in advance if you are planning to come along!

CONTACT: Lisa Chisholm: lisa.chisholm@otago.ac.nz

[Open Hours] Teaching and Researching with the Audio-Visual Essay | Catherine Fowler

Join us on Friday 22nd February for an Open Hours discussion between 12 noon and 1pm at the Digital Humanities Hub!

Topic – Teaching and Researching with the Audio-Visual essay

Our guest this week is Catherine Fowler from the Media, Film and Communication programme. She will consider the promise and challenge of audio-visual essays as a research, publishing, and teaching tool.

Over roughly the past 5 years Film and Media scholarship has been animated by the idea of the Audio-Visual essay. Increasingly the argument is made that media studies has always been held back by the inability to respond to our objects of study in their language; rather, when we write about the audio-visual we are always inevitably translating, and something is lost in translation. With the DVD came the opportunity to undertake videographic analysis: by stopping, slowing and repeating images students and researchers have been able to interrogate stylistic features and analyse how the art and politics of films come about. Thanks to the increasing availability of digital editing tools videographic analysis has entered another level.

The audio-visual essay has been born as both a form of assessment for students and research for scholars. The introduction of audio-visual essays raises questions familiar to all those working with digital tools: how can they be ‘counted’ as research? How can they be used to create new knowledge? And how can we ensure that audio-visual essays improve and support students’ writing tasks and scholarship rather than putting both in peril?

Reading & Viewing

Dead Time – Catherine Fowler, Claire Perkins, and Andrea Rassell

Explore both the essay and the creators’ statement in this audio-visual essay published in the [in]Transition journal. Co-creators Fowler, Perkins and Rassell seek on one hand “to respond to debates about whether media scholars can discover anything new by using eye tracking methods”, and on the other “to contribute to discussions as to the balance between the expository and the poetic in audiovisual essays….”

Unseen Screens: Eye Tracking, Magic and Misdirection – Tessa Dwyer and Jenny Robinson

Another piece from [in]Transition which gives some useful background to what research on eye tracking screens typically ‘looks like’.

WHEN: 12pm – 1pm, Friday 22nd February 2019

WHERE: Digital Humanities Hub, Room 1W3, First Floor, Arts Building

WHO: Anyone in the University community – there’s no advance registration required, but we always appreciate knowing in advance if you are planning to come along!

CONTACT: Alexander Ritchie alexander.ritchie@otago.ac.nz

[Open Hours] Transcription, text recognition & cultural heritage computing

Join us on Friday 15th February for a one hour discussion between 12 noon and 1pm at the Digital Humanities Hub for this week’s Open Hours!

Topic – Transcription, text recognition & cultural heritage computing

Dr Steven Mills is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science. His research is in computer vision, using computers to extract useful information from images and videos. He has a particular interest in cultural and heritage applications, including collaborations with archaeologists, archivists, and artists. He will present the results of preliminary work using deep neural networks to recognise letters and words in handwritten documents from the Marsden Online Archive. He will also attempt to explain what deep neural networks are, apart from “very mysterious”.

Lynn Benson is the Researcher Services Manager for Hocken Collections. She will explore some international initiatives and developments that are possible paths for the Library to follow in our goals to improve delivery of our digitised and born-digital collections.

Reading – Here’s How Google Deep Dream Generates Those Trippy Images | Madison Margolin

An introduction to the images produced by Google’s Deep Dream computer vision platform with an excellent video explanation by Dr Mike Pound.

You can even try generating your own images with one of the online Deep Dream generators:  https://deepdreamgenerator.com/

Image of the Otago University Clocktower processed and filtered by the Google's Deep Dream software
A Deep Dream of the Otago University Clocktower

Projects – READ, Visualize the Public Domain, Venice Time Machine, Arabic Scientific Manuscripts, Gravitron

WHEN: 12pm – 1pm, Friday 15th Feburary 2019

WHERE: Digital Humanities Hub, Room 1W3, First Floor, Arts Building

WHO: Anyone in the University community – there’s no advance registration required, but we always appreciate knowing in advance if you are planning to come along!

CONTACT: Alexander Ritchie alexander.ritchie@otago.ac.nz

[Open Hours February 8th] Finding & Cleaning Data

Join us on Friday 8th Feburary for a one hour discussion between 12 noon and 1pm at the Digital Humanities Hub for our weekly Open Hours!

Topic – How to find and clean data

Humanities data is often messy and hard to access. This session will introduce us to using OpenRefine to access and clean up data, using DigitalNZ collections as an example.

Readings

A Gentle Introduction to Data Cleaning

The Quartz guide to bad data

WHEN: 12pm – 1pm, Friday 8th Feburary 2019

WHERE: Digital Humanities Hub, Room 1W3, First Floor, Arts Building

WHO: Anyone in the University community – there’s no advance registration required, but we always appreciate knowing in advance if you are planning to come along!

LIBRARIAN: Chris Seay chris.seay@otago.ac.nz