RSS Conference: The Past’s Digital Presence #PDP2010
Jan 14, 2010 Events
| February 19, 2010 | to | February 20, 2010 |
How is digital technology changing methods of scholarly research with pre-digital sources in the humanities? If the “medium is the message,” then how does the message change when primary sources are translated into digital media? What kinds of new research opportunities do databases unlock and what do they make obsolete? What is the future of the rare book and manuscript library and its use? What biases are inherent in the widespread use of digitized material? How can we correct for them? Amidst numerous benefits in accessibility, cost, and convenience, what concerns have been overlooked? – from the conference website
These are the questions that will be addressed at The Past’s Digital Presence – Database, Archive and Knowledge Work in Humanities’ Conference that will take place at Yale University, 19-20 of February 2010.
Registration is open until 5th of February and you can see/download the conference program here.
You can follow the Conference’s Twitter and probably some of the discussion through the hashtag #PDP2010.
Tags: Archives, Conference, Databases, DigitalHumanities, Libraries
YouTube resources for History
Dec 2, 2009 Tools
The Online College Blog has a post with 100 YouTube Channels about History that can be an excellent resource for teaching several history subjects.
Divided into ten categories, you can access YouTube videos on General History, Music, Art, Cultural, Ancient or World History, between others, from several institutions.
One of the examples from this list of resources is an animation of the Bayeux Tapestry – that tells the story of the Norman conquest of England-, by the graphic designer David Newton. The animation relates to the second part of the tapestry, beginning with Harold’s coronation and the appearance of Halley’s Comet until the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
Tags: Animation, DigitalHumanities, Multimedia, Remixes
Augmented Reality
Aug 20, 2009 Projects
Imagine that you visit a museum and by pointing your mobile phone to an object of the exhibition you can see more information about it, or if it is a reconstructed archaeological artifact, you can see it in pieces as when it was found and then see the virtual reconstruction of the object.
Imagine that you can insert information, through your mobile phone, about the objects you are seeing and explore information that previous visitors left.
Imagine that you visit ancient ruins and by wearing special glasses, you can see how historians think the completed buildings were, at those times or even see virtual humans dressed, acting and talking as supposed.
Augmented Reality (AR) is a field of computer research that refers to the mixing of real world images and computer-generated data, that augments meaning to those real world images.
Although, AR refers to computers, the concept of adding graphical information to images of real objects is not new (take a look at History of Mobile Augmented Reality – via Howard Rheingold) and it is even used in paper books.
Since 1959 the Italian publishing firm VISION has been applying a patented system which consists of printing on transparent material the image of the reconstruction of the ruins of an ancient monument or of an archaeological area, in such a way as to overlay this reconstruction on a photograph of the same subject in its present state. In About Us Webpage of VISION
A simple form of augmented reality, still widely used nowadays, is a televised football match, which give the viewer several graphical information, during the game.
Augmented Reality is gathering a lot of interest, recently. Last July, Apple has filed a patent related to AR. According to Ori Inbar, from Games Alfresco,
Although the term Augmented Reality (AR) is not explicitly mentioned in the patent – it describes very common mobile AR scenarios.
Some people don’t believe Apple will be able to defend this patent due to published prior art on this field. Today, we have already several AR browsers, like Layar, Wikitude, Sekai Camera or Acrossair, for iPhone or Android Mobile Phones, and there are several projects on this field, some of them funded by European Commission.
ARCHEOGUIDE
ARCHEOGUIDE (2000-2002), a project funded by European Commision (5FP), had the following goals and features for visitors:
a) Accessing information in context with the exploration of the site through position and orientation tracking.
b) Personalized and thematic navigation aids in physical and information space through the use of visitor and tour profiles taking into account cultural and linguistic background, age and skills.
c) Visualization in 3D of missing artefacts and reconstructed parts of damaged sites on Head Mount Displays.
d) User friendly multi-modal interaction for obtaining information on real and virtual objects through gestures and speech. In addition, tools enabling site administrator to organize the presentation of site information in creative ways will be provided.
You can find several publications, presentations about the project and a video of the first results here.
LIFEPLUS
LIFEPLUS
LIFEPLUS (2002-2004), an extension of the previous project and funded by European Comission (5FP).
The goal of LIFEPLUS is to push the limits of current Augmented Reality (AR) technologies, exploring the processes of narrative design of fictional spaces (e.g. frescos-paintings) where users can experience a high degree of realistic interactive immersion. (…) According to its key mobile AR technology, visitors are provided with a see-through Head-Mounted-Display (HMD), earphone and mobile computing equipment. A tracking system determines their location within the site and audio-visual information is presented to them in context with their exploration, superimposed on their current view of the site.
You can see some videos and a making of the project here. Information about the characters animation can be found here.
iTacitus - Michael Zoellner's blog
iTacitus (2006-2009), funded by European Comission (6FP), explored how technology can be used to encourage cultural tourism.
iTacitus explored ways of using augmented reality to provide compelling experiences at cultural heritage sites. For example
* Superimposed Environments: 3D objects are placed into the scene on the spot in order to overlay the real scene. Like missing paintings, statues or architecture models.
* Annotated Landscape: Abstract context sensitive information overlays showing images, texts and videos about a certain spot.
* Spatial Acoustic Overlays: Transporting a place’s original ambiance by virtually placing spatial audio clips in the surroundings.
You can see a video in the project webpage. More information in Michael Zoellner’s blog.
DNP-Louvre Museum lab, in Tokyo, and Metaio, developed an experience to the museum, where the visitors are guided through the exhibition, having more information about what they are seeing and even having the possibility of seeing an object being virtually reconstructed:
(via Games Alfresco)
Another example of how augmented reality can be used in an attractive way in museums is Mobile Augmented Reality Quest (MARQ) 2005-2007, an electronic tour guide for museums based on a self-contained, inexpensive PDA.
The AR tour is delivered in the form of a team-oriented game. An arbitrary number of teams of visitors (target age 12-16) are cast into the role of investigators trying to solve a number of puzzles to solve that involve finding specific exhibits in the museum and manipulating the 3D cyberspace that surrounds the exhibit. Successful completion of a puzzle leads to the revelation of another part of the story. An interesting aspect of our project is also that it will for the first time involve the creation of massive amounts of professional and didactically relevant content for a mobile AR application.
Mobile Augmented Reality Quest (MARQ) 2005-2007
A situated Augmented Reality game played in a Museum in Austria (via Games Alfresco)
Games Alfresco blog has a good post with several other examples of Augmented Reality in Museums.
Tags: 3D, Augmented Reality, CulturalHeritage, Digital Games, DigitalCollections, DigitalExhibits, DigitalHumanities, Multimedia, Reconstruction of the Past
Digital Humanities 09 Conference #dh09
Jun 23, 2009 News
As we wrote before, Digital Humanities Conference 2009 started yesterday and will run until thursday, at University of Maryland, USA. Even if you couldn’t attend, you can still follow the conference due to the efforts of the organizers and participants.
arts-humanities.net have set up a discussion forum, that is open for everyone and invites users to share their thoughts. You can read a summary of some of the keynotes presented in this conference.
The Digital Library Blog at Boston University is doing live blogging, and you can follow it at Digilib.
If you prefer more immediacy, you can follow Twitter hashtag #dh09, to know what is being discussed. Don’t forget to insert #dh09 in your tweets, in order to join the discussion.
Thank you to all the participants that are sharing their thoughts (via Forum, Twitter or Live Blogging) on this conference with those who couldn’t attend.
Digital Humanities 09 Conference on Twitter
Tags: Conference, dh09, DigitalHumanities, ICT
Digital Humanities in 2008, by Lisa Spiro
Jun 1, 2009 Reviews
Lisa Spiro, director of the Digital Media Center at Rice University’s Fondren Library, made a three posts series on her blog about the developments on Humanities in 2008.
The first post talks about the emergence of Digital Humanities, about the several essays and dialogues that try to define this field and the efforts to achieve collaboration and coordination in Digital Humanities.
The second post focus on digital scholarship, open access and resistances. The third article discusses the developments in Digital Humanities research.
The posts have many links to articles, essays and projects that gives us a very good overview of the Digital Humanities developments and are a worthwhile reading.
Thanks to Lisa for this great review.
Digital Humanities in 2008, Part I
Digital Humanities in 2008, II: Scholarly Communication & Open Access
Digital Humanities in 2008, III: Research
Tags: Bibliography, DigitalHumanities, ICT, Research
Symposium: Contemporary history in the digital age
Apr 21, 2009 Call for papers, Events
| May 30, 2009 |
The University of Luxembourg (Master’s in Contemporary European History) and the Virtual Resource Centre for Knowledge about Europe (CVCE) are organising a Symposium to be held in October 2009, whose theme will be “Contemporary history in the digital age”.
The symposium will bring together contributions and workshop activities in three areas:
- Contemporary history on the Web today: resources and tools;
- Contemporary history on the Web today: methods and writing;
- Contemporary history on the Web tomorrow: which digital environment for researchers in contemporary history?
The deadline for applications is 30 May 2009. Proposals from disciplines other than that of contemporary history cannot be accepted.
You can download the call for papers here.
THATCamp2009 and Digital Humanities 09
Mar 31, 2009 Events
| June 22, 2009 | to | June 25, 2009 |
| June 27, 2009 | to | June 28, 2009 |
THATCamp (The Humanities And Technology Camp) is a BarCamp-style, user-generated “unconference” on digital humanities. it is organized and hosted by
Center of History and New Media of George Mason University, USA.
Following the spirit of BarCamp, helded around the world since 2005, THATCamp is an informal conference where “participants are expected to present their work, share their knowledge, and actively collaborate with fellow participants rather than simply attend.” [THATCamp 2009 website]
THATCamp 2009 will happen in June 27–28, but you should aplly until tomorrow (1st of April), due to restrictions of space.
You can read about last year’s THATCamp at Found History’s blog.
THATCamp 2009 will follow Digital Humanities 09 (dh09) conference, that will be hosted at Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities, in June 22-25. Registrations for dh09 will be open until June 14.
More information:
- Registration on Digital Humanities 09
Tags: Conference, DigitalHumanities, THATCamp, Unconference
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