visualization

SAIC/NU Data Viz Collaborative

Michael J. Kramer

SAIC/NU Data Viz Collaborative

August 16–22
Reception: Friday, August 16, 4:00–6:00 p.m.
Gallery X, 280 S. Columbus Dr., room 113

Twenty-one students and nine faculty members from Northwestern University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) are combining big data with collaborative research, studio arts, and visual communication design this summer at SAIC’s downtown campus. The results—creative approaches to information visualization developed in an intensive new course, called Data Viz Collaborative—will go on view at SAIC’s Gallery X from August 16 through 22 with related installations in the lobby of the LeRoy Neiman Center from August 16 through September 13.

The free exhibition will showcase the latest developments at SAIC in a long history of connecting artistic and scientific practices via their shared processes of discovery. Divided into three research groups, each set of participants was given six weeks and a $500 budget to develop the experimental projects that will be on display. The areas of concentration are Big Data and School Choice in Chicagoland, Mapping Genealogy and Ancestry, and Eye-tracking: tracing the gaze in an image.

“In today’s increasingly data-driven world, artists and designers have much to contribute to innovation alongside scientists and engineers,” says SAIC President Walter E. Massey. “The complexity and scale of the issues presented by visualizing information in the age of big data require a creativity of approach and mindset in both research and problem-solving. Only by combining the interpretive powers of artists and scientists can we continue to achieve the kinds of breakthroughs necessary to sustain an innovative society and economy.”

http://www.saic.edu/academics/areasofstudy/artandscience/datavizcollaborative/

CFP: American Art History and Digital Scholarship: New Avenues of Exploration

Michael J. Kramer

Call for Papers

Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

American Art History and Digital Scholarship: New Avenues of Exploration

November 15-16, 2013, Washington, DC

The Archives of American Art announces an upcoming symposium, American
Art History and Digital Scholarship: New Avenues of Exploration, to be
held at the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and
Portraiture, in Washington, DC, on Friday, November 15, followed by a
one-day workshop at the Archives of American Art on Saturday, November
16.  We seek proposals for Friday’s presentations and applications for
participation in Saturday’s moderated workshop.

The purpose of the symposium is to convene scholars, archivists,
librarians, graduate students, technical experts, and the public to
consider American art history in a digital world. The symposium will
examine ways to integrate digital tools and/or resources into the
study of American art and to encourage collaboration.

Conference organizers seek original, innovative scholarship from a
variety of disciplines, institutions, and research centers. The
symposium will assess the potential values and limitations of
technical tools in digital humanities including crowdsourcing,
high-resolution imaging and dynamic image presentation, mapping,
visual recognition software, network analysis, topic modeling, and
data mining. Are there particular digital tools and methods that will
transform research? What new knowledge can be gained? The symposium
will also consider future directions in the fields of art history and
digital humanities so that research centers and archives can prepare
for emerging research trends and questions. Additionally, the
symposium may consider the creative potential of online publishing for
presenting peer-reviewed scholarship in American art.

Day One symposium will feature talks and panels by key thinkers and
innovative practitioners who are currently using digital approaches to
advance the study of American art.  Papers may address the following
topics: research practices and trends, tools and methods, pedagogy,
publishing, and outreach.

Proposals should include a 300-word abstract and a short CV and be
sent via email to AAAsymposium@si.edu Deadline for submissions: August
15, 2013

Day Two workshop will be a moderated discussion on developing
partnerships and projects in the field of American art. The success of
new ventures in digital research depends on collaborations among
archivists, scholars, teachers, students, and IT specialists. What can
we learn from each other? Participants should apply via email at
AAAsymposium@si.edu and submit a brief statement of interest about
potential applications of digital research for American art history.
Please include in your statement particular subject areas, methods,
and/or projects that you would like to develop.  Organizers may screen
applications for Day Two to ensure a wide representation of
specialties, subject areas, and institutions.
Deadline for registration: September 30, 2013

Confirmed speakers will be required to submit a revised abstract by
October 30, 2013. The symposium will be free and open to the public,
webcast, and archived for later viewing. Schedule and materials will
be posted to www.aaa.si.edu/symposium

Funds for travel and accommodations are available for accepted speakers.

This symposium is funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art.

For more information about the symposium, please contact Kelly Quinn,
Terra Foundation Project Manager for Online Scholarly and
Educational Initiatives quinnk@si.edu.

For more information about the Archives of American Art visit aaa.si.edu.

Mary Savig

Curator of Manuscripts
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
Phone: 202.633.7959 | Fax: 202.633.7994
SavigM@si.edu

Notes on NUDHL #8: Defining DH @ NU

Michael J. Kramer

A great big thanks to Emily, Amanda, Andrew, Kevin, Beth, and all the other HASTAC@NUDHL Scholars for organizing a productive meeting!

A few “takeaways”:

We need to move from talking just about graduate education and DH in an all-purpose way to (1) the different stages of graduate education (1st year vs midpoint vs. home stretch) and DH and (2) where the intersections are among disciplines in graduate training and where it’s good for different disciplines to be just that: different—and then how DH can help to mediate those points of convergence and divergence in productive ways.

To me, the example of Andrew’s research encourages graduate students to (1) go for it with whatever tools you have at your disposal…dive in and explore, dead ends and negative results can be just as productive as brilliantly clear breakthroughs; digital humanities can encompass toying with MS Word or even pen and paper…”Why not?!” (2) think about the digital as both a tool of analysis (screwmeneutics, heuristic, analytic in the literal sense and think about it as a tool for visualization, narration, dramatizing an argument you already have articulated; (3) talk with others, consult, converse, seek new perspectives on your research questions, go deeper into your specialty and explore more broadly across different methods; (4) visualization of a poem, the poem as a visual object, comparative work through the digital, layering versions, and other ways that the digital is quite literally (literature-istically?) fertile, productive of new readings and interpretations.

Josh’s presentation reminded me that there is an emerging network or constellation of people, resources, projects, and interests at Northwestern. The challenge is how to give these better “definition,” more support, more instances of connection and elaboration.

– Michael

NU GIS Working Group Opportunity

Michael J. Kramer

From Ian Saxine:

Hello colleagues,

Ann Aler, the GIS specialist at the library, has agreed to host several training workshops for interested history grad students and faculty in the fall quarter of 2013. GIS (Geographic Information System) is a program that allows you to present and manage geographic data. Useful for everything from creating a customized map, to more complex tasks like categorizing, organizing, and presenting research findings (such as shifts in criminal activity in a city over time, economic patterns, etc.), GIS familiarity can enhance your dissertation or monograph. If people are interested in participating in several GIS workshops next fall (scheduling TBD) we have an opportunity to secure funding for them. The workshops would teach you to use the GIS lab technology in the library on your own in the future.

 

If you would like to participate, please send a brief response to iansaxine2014@u.northwestern.edu. The level of interest will influence the success of our funding proposal.

 

Regards,

Ian Saxine

New Upcoming HASTAC Forums

Michael J. Kramer
HASTAC@NUDHL Scholars and other interested folks, HASTAC just announced three new upcoming forums.
Dis/Ability: Moving Beyond Access in the Academy:

http://hastac.org/forums/disability-moving-beyond-access-academy

  • What strategies do you use in your classrooms to increase accessibility or even to cater to or accommodate particular disabilities? What challenges have you faced making your classroom more accessible? Have some strategies backfired? Are there particular issues that have prevented you from making accessibility-related changes?
  • What technologies are people using (whether assistive technologies or broader tech like YouTube & Twitter) to meet the needs of students? What technologies are used to create and/or support online disability identities?
  • How can our own scholarly research be more accessible? I mean this both in terms of wider availability (open access publishing, perhaps) and in terms of ensuring that a range of people with various physical differences can access our new media projects. How might accessibility enhance a digital or multimodal project?
  • How does disability theory intersect with technology, particularly in relation to race & resistance studies; “assistive” technologies; innovation, hacking & appropriation; and gender & queer studies?
Alan Turing: The First Digital Humanist?
  • What does it mean to include Turing as a digital humanist?
  • Is the “uncanny valley” still a useful concept?
  • What does it mean to consider technology queer?  Is information queer?  How might both be queered and to what end?
  • In considering the idea of the posthuman as queer, can we understand disability and /or illness to always already be posthuman? To never be posthuman? something else? What is the role of the state in creating the posthuman through technologies such as Turing’s chemical castration?
  • Why has Turing been a particularly important icon when thinking about the history of computing? In which histories is he highlighted or ignored?
  • The history of cybernetics is full of other interesting thinkers and makers, and many have gone unsung. We’d love to hear about the people, inventions or movements that you can add to this history.
  • What are your most interesting questions about cybernetics, posthumanism or Turing?
Visualizing Geography: Maps, Place and Pedagogy
  • How can web tools represent the literary spaces that a reader encounters (or imagines) in literature? What types of tools would fill the existing technological gaps in geospatial information studies?
  • How do narratives travel and replicate over geographical space? What would mapping these processes yield? How can we do it?
  • Is it problematic to represent literary and historical geography with modern interfaces like Google Maps? Should we be concerned that these visualizations may not be accurate representations of how our subjects would imagine space, or can we be content in uncovering new (and previously impossible) readings of old texts?
  • How does using maps as a pedagogical tool affect our understanding of both real and literary environments? Does mapping change the way we make connections even when we aren’t thinking about geographical space?

Opportunity: Jump-start your Python, R and Gephi skills, Nijmegen, Radboud University

Michael J. Kramer

Dr Mike Kestemont, University of Antwerp; Dr Marten Düring, Radboud
University Nijmegen
03.04.2013-05.04.2013, Nijmegen, Radboud University
Deadline: 15.03.2013

Jump-start your Python, R and Gephi skills

This intensive three-day workshop will equip both junior and senior
scholars with the ability and skills to “go digital”. The goal of this
workshop is to offer its participants the skills to understand the
potential of selected tools in Digital Humanities (DH), to consider
their application within the realms of their own field and, eventually,
to be able to start their own eHumanities projects. The workshop will
consist of three modules: Programming in Python, Statistics in R and
Network Analysis with Gephi. These modules will be designed to build
upon each other, thereby putting newly acquired skills to practical use
immediately. We also want to ensure a productive exchange between
participants as well as the instructors and, as such, the development of
long-lasting networks. In keeping with ALLC’s principal interests, the
workshop has a firm emphasis on the computational analysis of textual
data, be they literary or linguistic.

To ensure the broad coverage of relevant techniques for the workshop, we
have selected three generic research tools which are currently widely
applied within the eHumanities.
The programming language Python is widely used within many scientific
domains nowadays and the language is readily accessible to scholars from
the Humanities. Python is an excellent choice for dealing with
(linguistic as well as literary) textual data, which is so typical of
the Humanities. Workshop participants will be thoroughly introduced to
the language and be taught to program basic algorithmic procedures.
Because of the workshop’s emphasis on textual data, special attention
will be paid to linguistic applications of Python, e.g. Pattern.
Finally, participants will be familiarized with key skills in
independent troubleshooting.

Deplored by many DH scholars, most humanities curricula today fail to
offer a decent training in statistics. At the same time, a majority of
DH applications make use of quantitative tools in one way or the other.
We seek to provide our participants with hands-on experience with a
common statistical tool, R, with a specific emphasis on the practical
implementation of statistics and potential pitfalls. The statistical
software package R is widely used in the scientific processing and
visualisation of textual data.

Network visualizations can be counted among the most prominent and
influential forms of data visualization today. However, the processes of
data modelling, its visualization and the interpretation of the results
often remain a “black box”. The module on Gephi will introduce the key
steps in the systematization of relational data, its collection from
non-standardized records such as historical sources or works of fiction,
the potential and perils of network visualizations and computation and
finally the identification of relevant patterns and their significance
for the overall research question.

The workshop seeks to provide as much practical skills and knowledge in
as little time as possible. Each module will have the same basic
structure: After an introduction to the respective method and the
targets for the day, the participants will solve pre-defined tasks. The
workshop embraces the concept of trial and error and learning based on
one’s own accomplishments rather than passive information reception.

Registration

Participants are expected to pay a fee of EUR 60 and to make
arrangements for their travel and accommodation. Thanks to the EADH (ex
ALLC) funding we have received we are able to offer free lunch on all
three days as well as a farewell dinner.

In addition, we can offer 2 bursaries for students/participants who have
no other source of funding.

In order to register, please email Mike Kestemont at
mike.kestemont@gmail.com or Marten Düring at md@martenduering.com by
March 15th. Applicants are asked to include a short CV, a statement of
their previous experience with the above mentioned tools and their
research goals.

Previous experience in either programming, statistics or data
visualization is not required.

For further information of eHumanities research at Radboud University
Nijmegen and on the workshop, please visit http://www.ru.nl/ehumanities

Generously funded by the ALLC – The European Association for Digital
Humanities and with support from Radboud University Nijmegen

————————————————————————
Programme

We are very happy to have brought together a team of instructors who are
both experts in their field and great teachers:

Day 1: Programming in Python and basic Natural Language Processing tools
(Instructors: Folgert Karsdorp, Meertens Institut Amsterdam and Maarten
van Gompel, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen)

Day 2: Basic statistics in R (Instructor: Peter Hendrix, University of
Tübingen)

Day 3: Data modelling and network visualizations in Gephi (Instructor:
Clément Levallois, Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Homepage <http://www.ru.nl/ehumanities>

URL zur Zitation dieses Beitrages
<http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/termine/id=21210>

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H-SOZ-U-KULT@H-NET.MSU.EDU
Redaktion:
E-Mail: hsk.redaktion@geschichte.hu-berlin.de
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A Gentle Introduction to Digital Text Analysis, 11/14

Michael J. Kramer

Subject: A Gentle Introduction to Digital Text Analysis – SRTS event Nov 14th

 

Please join us for the last Scholarly Resources & Technology Series event of the fall quarter:

 

A Gentle Introduction to Digital Text Analysis

 

Date: Wednesday, Nov 14th

Time:  5:00pm to 6:00pm

 

Using computers to analyze and visualize literary texts is a practice with a long history in the digital humanities. This presentation outlines that history and also explores a few of the latest digital tools enabling scholars to use computational methods to analyze individual texts and corpora. The presentation will use Jade Werner’s work on the revision history of Lady Morgan’s Luxima,The Prophetess (1859). No programming experience required.

 

Presenters: 

Jade Werner, Doctoral Student, English Department

Josh Honn, Digital Scholarship Fellow, Center for Scholarly Communication & Digital Curation

 

Registration not required. 

 

—————-

Also a reminder for this Friday’s event at noon in the Library Forum Room

 

Professor Owen encourages you to bring your iPad to follow along.

 

 

Sincerely,

Scholarly Resources & Technology Series team