DH^CH@ISR 2023 / Speakers

The interpretive capabilities of computer vision technology for image recognition and retrieval have become very powerful in today's visual world. How can AI-based technologies be critically applied to the field of art history, considering the abundance of images available today? Discussed here are initial discoveries concerning the opportunities, challenges, and perspectives associated with the analysis and interpretation of large-scale image collections.

I assume a hitherto invisible rift between the research on the image of the video game and its material base. The image of video games brings with its own specificities. The constituted image, visible on the screen, is being born from the hardware’s calculation. It is interactive and as such holds within itself a plurality of different futures, actualizing itself upon the player’s input. Research on the image of video games more often than not focuses either on the constituted and visible image, or it’s material basis – either on visuality or technology.
Following my assumption is the thesis that there is an unacknowledged interplay between the techno-historic limits of video game development and the reception of the image, respectfully, the generation of meaning for the player. Working on this research question demands an interdisciplinary approach that can handle both domains, technology and visuality, halves of a proposed whole. The methods used in this approach are lent from digital humanities, design research and new materialism with a focus on technology studies.

Advancements of digital technologies accelerate the record of Intangible cultural heritage (ICH) producing a large amount of data. Nevetheless, the invaluable ICH data is under-utilized and dispersed in different databases. As a result, the knowledge embedded in the ICH data is seperated and not linked effectively. The occurence of knowledge graph (KG) plays a role of semantic glue in aggregating ICH knowledge, and thus is capable to provide a well-connected ICH knowledge. Additionally, text-oriented KG lacks the ability to provide the visual perception for the public when they do not have the related background knowledge and try to connect the referred entity and possible related image. Therefore, this work will construct Chinese multimodal KG integrating texts and images in two ways (from ICH entities to images and from images to ICH entities).

The analysis of historical source material with Digital Tools has opened up the capability to Distant Read the sources and gather a deeper understanding of its contents. This talk will focus on how a large corpus of source material can be approached to recognise main themes and key words through the use of Digital Humanities.The correspondence of Pope Benedict XIV. with his family agent Filippo Maria Mazzi will serve as an example of the use of Topic Modelling and Text Analysis to decipher the practices of the Pope in the 18th century.

Through the lens of memory institutions, I analyze the complex history of cultural heritage in the digital space, as well as new forms of curation adopted by memory institutions. Through case studies and interviews, I also aim to provide insights into the challenges and opportunities presented by this rapidly changing landscape. My research sheds light on the role of memory institutions in the digital age and suggests ways in which digital technologies can be leveraged to open access and democratize cultural heritage.

A photograph does not consist only of its surface image. It is a three-dimensional object, often with a thin thickness. Massive digitization programs do not consider the material aspect of a photograph, reducing it to a pure two-dimensional image.
Let us think together about the methodologies, technologies and approaches that can be adopted, developed and invented to explore the potential of 3D digitization and retake value to the three-dimensional nature of photography.

Preservation is a central pillar in the caretaking of ancient heritage objects.
With these artefacts of lived pasts acting as "sustainers" of history, their
potential has to be rethought for and in the digital sphere.
Taking a look back to take a step forward, questions of provenance,
archiving practices, and the evolution of research fields are all of the utmost
importance to consider before and while creating sustainable processes for
future digital preservation and handling.
In answering the question of why the papyrus left the museum, this talk will
highlight the key aspects of the doctoral thesis in progress.

Since their emergence in the 1970s, 3D digitization technologies have been used to capture and visualize cultural heritage objects for both research and public engagement initiatives. Archaeologists, art historians, and restorers in are reliant on accurate and authentic visual documentation that faithfully reproduces the physical materiality of the original artifacts. But despite the widespread 3D digitization in museums and archives today the active use of digital 3D objects by researchers and professionals in the humanities is still limited. Next to other challenges, a crucial but under-researched issue of the usability of 3D data is the state-of-the-art of 3D digitization technology and, consequently, the quality and accuracy of the digitized material. This talk aims to investigate the basic requirements that 3D data must meet to be suitable for use in humanities research.

There are many ways in which an object becomes ours. A thing can enter a person’s collection via a present or hand-me down, by acquiring it online or after seeing it in person, or suggested by an algorithm based on a past purchase, among other ways—the end product being an amalgamation of the person’s desires, tastes, history, and others’ imposed presumptions.
As current western society embraces the use of recommendation and generative algorithms in an ever expanding digitally dependent world, where does the agency of the individual’s choice lie in deciding what they will get next? How will this affect the person’s desires of what they really want or need versus what they are being fed through these systems? What stuff will be used and what will become a burden? What gets lost along the way?
This thesis is an auto-ethnographic design research inquiry examining the compulsions of desires and influences we receive from our collected objects, other people, and algorithms. The presentation will be a brief summary of the design research trajectory of the thesis, touching upon the topics and hurdles and open questions that have come up along the way.

My talk will focus on the analysis of the main texts that have been counterfeited, making a historical examination starting with the Paris Dispute of 1240 and the Barcelona Dispute of 1263, and ending with the texts disseminated in the Renaissance, with particular attention to the documents of Tommaso Campanella's Trial in Naples and the Bibliotheca sancta of Sixtus of Siena. The relationship between Jews, Jewish converts and Christians during the Renaissance will also be examined. The aim is to demonstrate that, thanks to the digitization of these texts, only correct information from the original sources will be able to circulate and, given that even today many of these have not been digitized, how important it is to do so in order to preserve historical truthfulness.

This talk is dedicated to the question of (local) social changes and to what extent these are reflected in the Schnitzelbänke of the UNESCO Basel Fasnacht . The focus is on politics, the role of women, the military, sport, the economy, Basel's self-image and religion.