Thresholds, edges, the verge.

The theme of Day 1 of RRCHNM’s Digital Art History summer workshop turned continually upon us (the 20 graduate student cohort) being not only at the outset of our understanding of the field, but also circling the shifting boundaries of the Digital Art History field itself. My impression from today is that DAH is in constant evolution, both theoretically and in terms of software, so it’s important not to rest too heavily on a static way of using tools or sites. As our workshop Co-Director Sharon Leon succinctly put it: the aim of our time here is learning how to learn.

Following a healthy debate on the threshold concepts of History of Art (multiple perspectives, multiple and contradictory causes and the critical analysis of objects all won support) the group started to consider the value of building a professional identity online. Discussion was swiftly followed by action, a refrain that will undoubtedly be repeated this week, and this blog was born.

One of my primary hopes for the next two weeks is that I come to understand how to ask new research questions of the theatrical portraits which I study, ones that take better advantage of digital capabilities. To this end, I have been considering how mapping might help me to understand how actors and actresses interacted with London-based portraitists from the early to mid-nineteenth century. Of course, that is very big question but learning how to wrangle a modest amount of data and some tools would hopefully set me on the right path. I’m also interested in comparing shifting instances of corporeal pose between a range of performers and hope that learning how to build digital collections will make associations possible. Tomorrow I’m looking forward to getting a handle on major digital image collections, metadata and (more prosaically) my jetlag.

Source: Building a Digital Portfolio Day 1: Art Historians on the Brink