CURRENT TOPICS IN DIGITAL HUMANITIES RESEARCH AT KING'S COLLEGE
Pratt’s partnership with King’s College allowed for access to both the Digital Humanities department faculty and PhD student’s current research projects, which were presented to our class followed by discussion. The variety and vast scope in topic of the projects struck me, yet there was still a connecting theme: community access to information.
Simon Tanner’s presentation on the Open GLAM project addressing the rewards and risks of digital sharing for the public good was particularly interesting. An experimental exhibition of digital cultural heritage, 100 public domain artworks were printed in high resolution and original dimensions and exhibited, the project faced challenges due to technological restriction to make the images open to the public even if copyright had expired. With different countries have different copyright laws, the challenge lies in who is accessing the information. The problem has become that of , where access should be available to communities in order to learn about cultural histories, instead limitations are being put on these artworks for profit. Tanner argues that “all cultural content should be as freely available to as many people as possible”, in this case the rewards outweighing the risks.
Another project that I found intriguing was that of born-digital art preservation. A growing medium that has found it’s way into most museum’s collection development policies, Tom Ensom is a PhD student working with the Tate to keep software based artworks alive. According to Rosa (2015), the need for preservation and continued access to born-digital artworks is an immediate issue that requires an open dialogue between artist, institution, and technological staff. Susceptibility to digital decay and obsolescence through technological change are both major challenges for the preservation of software based artworks. Ensom is working to develop digital preservation strategies and best practices that include emulations, or virtualisation, where access is achieved through simulation of original software as well as migrations, or recoding, where extensive documentation is required to recode the software into current language. In order for the later to be achieved, how and why the original works were made is required. Fortunately, most born-digital artists are living and can provide both the functional and structural descriptions necessary to achieve this. In order for the long term preservation and access of born-digital artworks, the communication and intent to share this information with an audience must be present.
Simon Tanner’s presentation on the Open GLAM project addressing the rewards and risks of digital sharing for the public good was particularly interesting. An experimental exhibition of digital cultural heritage, 100 public domain artworks were printed in high resolution and original dimensions and exhibited, the project faced challenges due to technological restriction to make the images open to the public even if copyright had expired. With different countries have different copyright laws, the challenge lies in who is accessing the information. The problem has become that of , where access should be available to communities in order to learn about cultural histories, instead limitations are being put on these artworks for profit. Tanner argues that “all cultural content should be as freely available to as many people as possible”, in this case the rewards outweighing the risks.
Another project that I found intriguing was that of born-digital art preservation. A growing medium that has found it’s way into most museum’s collection development policies, Tom Ensom is a PhD student working with the Tate to keep software based artworks alive. According to Rosa (2015), the need for preservation and continued access to born-digital artworks is an immediate issue that requires an open dialogue between artist, institution, and technological staff. Susceptibility to digital decay and obsolescence through technological change are both major challenges for the preservation of software based artworks. Ensom is working to develop digital preservation strategies and best practices that include emulations, or virtualisation, where access is achieved through simulation of original software as well as migrations, or recoding, where extensive documentation is required to recode the software into current language. In order for the later to be achieved, how and why the original works were made is required. Fortunately, most born-digital artists are living and can provide both the functional and structural descriptions necessary to achieve this. In order for the long term preservation and access of born-digital artworks, the communication and intent to share this information with an audience must be present.
