Category: digital humanities

[#dhBytes Seminar UPDATE] POSTPONED until further notice | Digital Data Drama in the Humanities

It is with regret that we have decided to call off this DH Bytes seminar and others in the series planned for this semester.

This will probably come as no surprise to most of you, especially given the government and University announcements of Monday and the consequent necessary shifts in our ways of working, teaching, learning and researching.

We hope to revisit the series for Semester 2, and will be in touch when we are able to go ahead.

Take good care in these challenging and unsettling times!

Join us on Thursday 26 March at 1pm for the inaugural dhBytes seminar at 1pm in Seminar Room 6 at the University’s Central Library | Te Iho Mātauranga o Te Whare Wananga o Otago.

The session will feature two presenters from the University Library, Alexander Ritchie and Judy Fisher, who will each speak for 15 minutes on data and drama in the Humanities. Following that we will have some kai, coffee, and discussion. We will also offer an update on DH initiatives at Otago.

Continue reading “[#dhBytes Seminar UPDATE] POSTPONED until further notice | Digital Data Drama in the Humanities”

Announcing DH Bytes – Digital Humanities Seminars this semester

The Otago University Digital Humanities Initiative and OU Library are pleased to announce the DH Bytes seminar series, which follow on from last year’s Open Hours Discussions in the Digital Humanities Hub | Te Pōkapu Matihiko o Te Kete Aronui.

DH Bytes are a series of three, themed, interdisciplinary seminars in semester one 2020, that will happen monthly on Thursdays at 1pm in the Central Library. They will focus on collaboration, conversation, and connection across disciplines, programmes, departments, and projects both critical and generative.

Continue reading “Announcing DH Bytes – Digital Humanities Seminars this semester”

Free Pop-up Digital Humanities WORKSHOP

We’re pleased to announce the addition of a free pop-up workshop to precede this year’s Digital Humanities Expo:

String Games: getting started with web scraping in Python

WHO: Dr Christopher Thomson (U. Canterbury)
WHEN: 10 – 11:30am, Monday 14th October 2019
WHERE: HR ITS Training & Development Room 1, 270 Leith Walk [map]
HOW: spaces are limited – register here http://tiny.cc/DHPopUp
CONTACT: email alexander[dot]ritchie[at]otago for further information

Still Image of Artist Vera Frenkel's String Games: Improvisations for Inter-City Video (Montreal–Toronto, 1974) featuring a street-scene with artist making a cats cradle shape using their bodies and rope
Vera Frenkel – String Games: Improvisations for Inter-City Video (Montreal–Toronto, 1974)

This free workshop is for anyone who wants to learn how to use simple code to pull text from webpages for their research.

Using programming language Python, we will work from examples to understand the key steps needed to achieve common tasks, such as obtaining a ‘clean’ text from the web to use for further analysis, or selecting pieces of information and organising them in a structured form, such as a spreadsheet. We will introduce some programming concepts along the way, but will focus on the ‘big picture’ – that is, understanding how these techniques can be used in academic contexts, and how to apply them to your own work.

Register here – http://tiny.cc/DHPopUp

Christopher Thomson is Head of Digital Humanities at University of Canterbury and Co-director of the UC Arts Digital Lab

[Open Hours] The End of the Beginning: Wrap-Up & Future Directions

Join us on Friday 5th July for an extended Open Hours discussion between 12 and 2pm at the Digital Humanities Hub | Te Pokapū Matihiko o Te Kete Aronui!

Topic – The End of the Beginning

Join us for this last session in the current iteration of Open Hours, as we reflect on our work so far and think about what comes next. We would like to hear how we have done, and what you would like to see happen in the Hub in the weeks and months to come!

For the last 9 months, Humanities Librarians have been hosting Open Hours presentations, discussions and drop-ins at the Digital Humanities Hub | Te Pōkapu Matihiko o Te Kete Aronui. We sought to offer gentle introductions to digital thinking, tools, methods and projects for humanities research and teaching. Our aim was to create an open forum for asking questions, exchanging ideas and methods, and forming connections with colleagues across ‘Digital’ Humanities and between disciplines at Otago.

Now, as we mark Puaka Matariki and anticipate the beginning of semester two in 2019, this pilot collaboration between the OU Library and the Otago DH group is coming to an end. We would love to hear your perspective, so join us for some collaborative critique, crackers and cake.

In many ways, I think you could turn around and look to the digital humanities not as a sign of the apocalypse but for paths out of this mess. Here’s a field that has been working for years on open access research and publication platforms, on ways to articulate and valorize work done outside of narrow, elite channels, and on how to value scholarship that’s collaborative and interdisciplinary.

The Digital in the Humanities: An Interview with Bethany Nowviskie | Melissa Dinsman interviews Bethany Nowviskie

dh People, Projects, & Presentations

In 2019, we have been privileged to host some fascinating Open Hours discussions covering topics ranging from digital art and 3d modelling, through machine learning and data wrangling, to audiovisual essays and visualisation:

WHEN: 12pm – 2pm, Friday 5th July 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 [dot] ritchie [at] otago.ac.nz

[Open Hours Discussion] Data Wrangling and Digital (in)Security | David Hood

Join us on Friday 28th June as we host another Open Hours session between 1 and 2pm at the Digital Humanities Hub | Te Pokapū Matihiko o Te Kete Aronui!

This week’s discussion is with David Hood who works in Human Resources as an Adviser in IT Training and Development. In this position he is responsible for training students and staff in a variety of software applications, and included in this are classes on how to stay safe in the digital environment. However, in his spare time, David is a digital activist, using publicly available data to highlight or unravel misconceptions in social and political issues in the media.

David will discuss some of his data discoveries – including his findings when the alt-right Canadian speakers Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern’s visit to New Zealand caused havoc in the Twittersphere.

[Open Hours] Contemporary Artists as Digital Sociologists | Chloe Geoghegan

Join us on Friday 21st June for an Open Hours discussion between 1 and 2pm at the Digital Humanities Hub | Te Pokapū Matihiko o Te Kete Aronui!

Topic – Contemporary Artists as Digital Sociologists | Chloe Geoghegan

Notes & Links from Chloe’s talk [Google Doc]

Our guest this week is Chloe Geoghegan, Art curator at Te Uare Taoka o Hākena | Hocken Collections. Join us as she presents some of her favourite digital art works by contemporary artists, and hear how an Honours paper in digital humanities at UC helped her with her curatorial education.

Artists are hypersensitive to social shifts. They have an innate ability to pick up on trends before they become the norm and highlight them, often by creating art that holds a mirror up to society, asking us to look again with a more self-critical, self-reflective eye. In today’s art world, where mass production, mass consumption and an impending sense of doom follow the most conscious around, artists are taking note, and using the screen as a mirror to force those who take the time to take a closer look.

Reading

Contemporary Art, Daily | Michael Sanchez

Sanchez, Michael: “Contemporary Art, Daily.” In Art and Subjecthood: The Return of the Human Figure in Semiocapitalism, edited by Daniel Birnbaum, Isabelle Graw, and Nikolaus Hirsch, 52–61. Berlin: Sternberg, 2011.

The competitive image ecology of Contemporary Art Daily is a reflection of economic competition. With a record number of art students graduating from prestigious graduate programs in a market with less money to purchase their work, competition is more intense than ever. And although art since the recession arguably looks more friendly and less strategic, it is, in fact, strategic to the point of paranoia, since it must compete within an increasingly rapid and invasive system of image distribution joined with a system of social surveillance and exchange.

Works.Exhibitions – Duty Free Art, Merge Nodes

Photograph of seated person in gallery space watching two widescreen televison screens displaying Duty Free Art (2016) by artist Hito Steyerl
Hito Steyerl, Duty Free Art (2016)
  • Duty Free Art | Hito Steyerl – These works from 2014, exhibited in 2016, strike deep into art’s social function. Free-trade zones, where speculative art commodities are bought and sold invisibly and tax free, are, like civil wars, an important backbone of the international art business. Both facilitate the redistribution of public property into private hands, and are catalysts of global inequality.
  • Merge Nodes | Joe Hamilton – Hamilton makes use of technology and found materials to create intricate and complex compositions online, offline and in between. The term ‘merge nodes’ refers to the collapsing of multiple geographical locations into one frame. ‘Merge node’ is also the name of a tool used to merge two digital image or video files.

WHEN: 1pm – 2pm, Friday 21 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: Alexander Ritchie alexander.ritchie@otago.ac.nz

[Open Hours] DH Expo 2018 Keynote | Towards uncertain narratives: data & ‘stories’ | Harkanwal Singh

Join us on Friday 14th June for an Open Hours viewing and discussion between 1 and 2pm at the Digital Humanities Hub | Te Pokapū Matihiko o Te Kete Aronui!

DH Expo 2018 Keynote – Harkanwal Singh

This week we will be viewing and discussing the keynote from last year’s DH Expo.

Harkanwal Singh was the first full-time data journalist working in the Aotearoa NZ media, and was Data Editor at the New Zealand Herald Newspaper until mid-2017. He is currently Founder and Principal at Elements Data Studio, which produces, consults on, and trains people in data visualisation.

His talk is an engaging, wryly-humorous discussion of visualisation, interpretation, narrative and design, which includes some practical suggestions for techniques, tools, and languages to try, and some stellar examples of possibilities.

Viewing

Towards uncertain narratives: data & ‘stories’ – Harkanwal Singh

Projects – Parable of Polygons, The Pudding, Up & Down the Ladder of Abstraction

WHEN: 1pm – 2pm, Friday 14 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: Alexander Ritchie alexander.ritchie@otago.ac.nz

Open Hours in June & DH Expo 2019

As semester one teaching ends, exams begin, and Puaka Matariki approaches, we thought it a good time to update you about upcoming Digital Humanities happenings in Te Pokapū | the DH Hub.

Open Hours  @ Te Pokapū

Open Hours are informal sessions where staff and postgraduate researchers, teachers and librarians can explore digital projects, demonstrate digital research tools, and critically discuss the context and politics of the digital in the Humanities. These are informal discussions, hosted by a librarian, academic or postgraduate student presenting on a Digital Humanities (DH) topic, and all voices (and people belonging to them) are welcome.

On Fridays in June at 1pm, we will be hosting critical discussion and viewing sessions on topics including archaeology, data ‘stories’, digital art practice, digital security, and a wrap-up of the year so far:

Te Pokapū | The Hub will also be open from 12 – 1pm on Fridays for the hour before these discussions. You are very welcome to stop by and check out the space, or chat to a Humanities Librarian about your research or teaching.
More details about the Open Hours and Drop-In Sessions can be found on the news section.

Otago Digital Humanities Expo 2019

This year’s Digital Humanities Expo will take place on 14th October in the Burns / Arts Building – watch the new OU Digital Humanities Expo pages for more details and updates over the coming months. Programme details and videos (where available) from past Expos are also now available on those same pages.
The OU DH Expo is an annual event organised by the Digital Humanities Working Group to showcase Otago University’s digital humanities scholarship alongside national and international speakers and projects.

Learn more about Te Pokapū | The Hub 

the place     the people     the machines     the news

[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 Discussion] Generous Interfaces: Delivering Access to Rich Cultural Heritage Collections

Join us on Friday 12 April for an Open Hours discussion between 1 and 2pm at the Digital Humanities Hub | Te Pokapū Matihiko o Te Kete Aronui!

Topic  – Generous Interfaces: Delivering Access to Rich Cultural Heritage Collections

Our guest this week is Lynn Benson, Researcher Services Manager at Te Uare Taoka o Hākena | Hocken Collections. She will explore international initiatives that offer possible paths to follow, as OU Libraries seek to provide ever better access to their digitised and born-digital collections for teaching and research. Lynn is particularly interested in the different ways institutions are experimenting with how to present digital collections to support different searching methodologies for these particular kinds of research collections.

Viewing

The Goldfinch: a bird’s-eye view | Mauritshuis

Still image with text" A little piece of nothing ... but very good" from the website The Goldfinch: a bird's-eye view | Mauritshuis
Frame from The Goldfinch: a bird’s-eye view | Mauritshuis

Discover the story behind The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius (1654), and explore the exquisite possibilities of generous multimedia access to one of Mauritshuis’ astounding collection of Dutch paintings from the Golden Age. This collection also includes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt, and The Bull by Potter.

Projects – Time Machine, Visualize the Public Domain, Gravitron

  • The Time Machine Project – Self-described as “by far the most ambitious and far-reaching project ever undertaken using Big Data of the Past”, this EU-funded internationally-collaborative project is building a map of European history that spans thousands of years.
    Visualize the Public Domain | New York Public Library – an experiment by NYPL Labs to help patrons understand and explore the more than 180,000 images released by NYPL into the Public Domain.
  • Gravitron – the work and thoughts of Geoff Hinchcliffe, senior Design lecturer at ANU, about design, data, computation and interface aesthetics.

WHEN: 1pm – 2pm, Friday 12 April 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