2022 Theme: Collapse, Creativity, and Imagination

The ideas of progress, growth and expansion, which for a long time defined the visions about the future in Western cultures, and marked the action strategies (social, economic and political) undertaken have been replaced in the last few years by the idea of «collapse». Recent events (pandemic, invasion of Ukraine, etc.) and systemic facts (global warming, resource depletion, etc.) lead us to believe that the world, as we have known it up to now, is heading towards a total collapse. Different authors have defended in recent years the need to articulate a debate on collapse that helps us to think about how such collapse could be triggered and what its implications would be (Servigne and Stevens, 2015).  Within the framework of DAHSS22, we propose to think about creativity as a mechanism to ameliorate the causes that lead us to a collapse and to imagine possible alternative futures. Thus, the DAHSS22 five tracks will revolve around the following central question: How can creativity and imagination, in alliance with contemporary digital, technological and computational developments, become an asset to replace the idea of collapse with that of rebirth for thinking and making a new future?

The course is organized around five tracks. Each participant can only join one of the tracks. During your application, you should select the tracks in your preferred order.

Track A: Digital Display Spaces, Niemeyer will work with participants in configuring digital spaces for exhibitions on virtual platforms such as newart.city and modzilla hub. Techniques include basic modeling and animation, .fbx or .glb file format, spatial strategies for virtual engagement, data visualization and local sound synchronization in virtual spaces. Track A participants will create content and curate content produced in the other Tracks to cumulate in an online virtual exhibit about DAHSS 2021.

Track B: Data Science. Cultural data–well used, managed, and analysed–is of immense value for the understanding of art history and its impact on society. Open data is an opportunity to engage the public with cultural heritage, foster diversity and create knowledge. In this track, led by Harald Klinke (LMU Munich), we will investigate open data sources, learn the fundamentals of cultural data analysis, and use simple but powerful computational tools. No prior experience is necessary. Bring your own data. You can find more information at: http://dahss22.harald-klinke.de/

Track C:  3D Data, Modeling, and Rendering. This track will explore 3D data acquisition techniques, such as photogrammetry and laser scanning, and their use in VR and related virtual environments.  We will experiment with different ways of exploring virtual space, and will see how we might use augmented and virtual reality to practice Digital Art History. We will also ask ourselves how to best design visualizations and historical reconstructions for these environments.

Track D: Computer Vision, Machine Learning, AI. Track D, led by Leonardo Impett (University of Cambridge), will think about applications of AI and computer vision to the history of art and visual studies. Thinking about ‘the visual’ is a major difference between digital art history and ‘digital humanities on art history’. We will look at the long history of the computer analysis of images from the late 1980s to today, as well as thinking about the implicit theories of vision that underpin computer vision systems today. We’ll learn to use some basic image processing tools and more sophisticated AI and machine learning algorithms to search within, organise, or study large image sets. Using tools like Scikit-Image, Tensorflow, and ImageGraph (a visual AI tool which we wrote specifically for DAHSS), we will build systems that deal with genuinely big image datasets. For the first time, we will also look at AI systems that generate images like DALL·E, and ask how we might use them as art historians.

Track E: Natural Language Processing (NLP), led by Yadira Lizama Mué (CulturePlex Lab, Western Ontario University) will explore the applications of NLP to understand what textual big data can tell us about art. By combining the power of linguistics and computer science, NLP considers the guidelines and structure of language and creates intelligent systems that comprehend, break down, and separate meaning from text and speech.  We will explore a wide range of NLP topics relevant to the context of Digital Art History, starting with the basics like word tokenization & tagging, semantic similarity, named-entity recognition, topic modelling, and leading to deep learning applications to sentiment analysis, text classification, and human-like text generation. We will gain practical experience using tools such as Spacy, and TensorFlow while exploring collections of art-related texts in the H.W. Wilson’s Art Full Text database, Project Muse, Wikipedia, and social media platforms. You are welcome to bring your own data and ask questions about the applications of NLP to your own research.

 

Plenary Sessions

No matter what track you pick, you will also see what students do in other tracks in our daily plenary session. In the plenary sessions, notable alumni of the DAHSS program will also share feedback and observations about how DAHSS helped them in their work.

Coffee Talks

Each day, we will have lighting talks from DAHSS alumni, to promote their projects, research and networking between the current students and the alumni. Over the years, we have settled a strong DAHSS alumni network and community. We also organize online coffee talks during the whole year to continue promoting and building a Digital Art History community.

Intended audience: postgraduate students, academic researchers, independent scholars and professionals related to the following disciplines: Art History and Visual Studies, Fine Arts, Graphic Design, Computer Sciences, Media and New Media Studies, Museum Studies, and Humanities.

Fee: 200€

The price includes daily lunch and a special tapas lunch on the last day.
Unfortunately, we do not provide accommodation, but email us and we are happy to give suggestions and tips on transportation and accommodation while you are planning your stay here.

Places: 40

The organization will cover enrollment expenses of 4 participants from Latin America

 

IMPORTANT DATES

Deadline: June 15th
By June 20th: Notification about accepted applications
June 20th – July 7th: Registration phase
August 28th: Start of Summer School
September 3rd: Closure of the Summer School

 

 

For more information, please visit: https://dahss.iarthislab.eu/2022/index/, digitalarthistory@uma.es

Official hashtag #DAHSS22