INVESTIGATING MUSEUM COLLECTIONS: A COMBINATION OF DIGITAL AND TECHNICAL ART HISTORY

The course aims at providing insights into the ways museums research and document their collections, and will focus on new approaches within digital humanities and technical art history to catalogue, document and research objects. There will be special attention to data-driven object-based research, both art historical and technical, using methods from technical art history which combines art historical research with data obtained from scientific analyses and digital imaging methods. The course aims at introducing students to these increasingly interdisciplinary research approaches used to unlock and share the many stories hidden in artworks, and how digital data play an increasingly significant part in that. Particular attention will be given to the current methods of database building and iconographic indexation of collections of artefacts.

The objectives of the course are:
• to gain insights into scientific analytical approaches and interdisciplinary collaboration in the field of art history;
• to develop skills in analysing and interpreting texts, images and digital formats, on studio practice and art technology ;
• to recognise and evaluate various strands of research crucial for specific data-driven research to set up an interdisciplinary research programme;
• to gain an understanding of different methods of iconographic indexation and database building
• to learn digital humanities methodologies, including documentation methods, aimed at object/collection-based research;
• to gain an understanding of FAIR digital cultural heritage collection building and sharing.

1. Knowledge and comprehension: knowing the range of research methods that can be part of data-driven object-based research; knowing the different approaches within museum-based collection research to understand the role of digital humanities with this environment; knowing the history of and new developments within the field of digital and technical art history.
2. Competences and abilities: Acquiring the skills to work in an interdisciplinary team; delivering a clear research proposal for object-based projects; delivering an informed proposal for digital data-driven research.
3. Communication abilities Interacting with disciplinary and inter/multidisciplinary professionals led by gained knowledge of a communal language focused on the central research question; communicating research results in various ways to different audiences.

No prerequisite needed. Desirable: basic knowledge of art history from the XV until the XVII centuries

The course will focus on digital and technical art history, engaging with data-driven object-based research, digital data gathering, database creation, indexing methods. Object-based research combines a variety of research strands to gain a thorough understanding of how the object was made, catalogued and indexed. We will look into the digital developments into the fields of art history and curatorial studies.

Readings
 
1. F. Diara, "Cultural Heritage Digital Data: Future and Ethics", in Digital Cultural Heritage, ed. by H. Kremers, Springer 2020

2. C. Dondi, M. Malaspina, A. Dutta, A. Zisserman, The Use and Reuse of Printed Illustrations in 15th-Century Venetian Editions, in C. Dondi (ed. by), Printing R-evolution and society 1450-1500
Online: https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/it/edizioni/libri/978-88-6969-333-5/

3. S. Kenderdine, “Embodiment, Entanglement, and Immersion in Digital Cultural Heritage", in A New Companion to Digital Humanities, ed. by Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, and John Unsworth, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2016. 
Online: http://www.arise.mae.usp.br/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/A-New-Companion-to-Digital-Humanities.pdf
 
4. L. Manovich, "Database as Symbolic Form", in Museum in a Digital Age, ed. by R. Parry, Leicester, Routledge, 2010.
 
5. R. Srinivasan; K. Becvar; R. Boast; J. Enote, "Diverse Knowledges and Contact Zones within the Digital Museum", Science, technology, & human values, 2010-09-01, Vol.35 (5)

One article to be chosen from Magazen, International  Journal for Digital and Public Humanities (volumes 1.1, 1.2, 2.1,2.2) (please indicate your choice at least two weeks before the exam):
https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/it/edizioni4/riviste/magazen/issuesList  
 

To verify the achievement of the course objectives, students, in addition to the final oral exam, will have to write an illustrated essay focused on object-based research or on digital methodologies for art historical research, of 3000 words max, including footnotes and references - excluding tables, captions and illustrations. This can be a case study of one or more objects, a historical artistic method and/or material, or a more theoretical essay on digital methodology and or theoretical concepts based on the knowledge gained throughout the course.
Students will present their preliminary results during the course to discuss their approach and discuss options and questions that may arise. The essay will be 15/30 of the mark, and it will discussed during the final oral exam which will be the other 15/30 of the final mark.

The course will consist of the following:
- Lectures on relevant topics from digital methods, object-based research, database building, indexation methods, technical analytical methods and imaging
- There will be specific seminars on case studies and lectures from museum and digital professionals.
- Students are expected to present their project during the course in specific sessions

English

Language course: English

written and oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Cities, infrastructure and social capital" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development