“Literature is Not Data”

as well as a rebuttal.

This debate is largely

devoted to computation-

al analysis of literature,

but the questions raised

are relevant topics for all

humanists. Moretti is

certainly pleased that

art historians are joining

the digital world, com-

menting “It's a little

claustrophobic in our

field.”

Can artworks be data?

What do we lose from

quantification? And

what do we gain?

What’s in a name? Quite

a lot, if you ask literary

scholar Franco Moretti.

“[The term] ‘digital

humanities’ seems

astoundingly inappro-

priate,” he says, “for an

area of study that in-

cludes, on the one hand,

computational research,

digital reading and writ-

ing platforms, digital

pedagogy, open-access

publishing, augmented

texts, and literary data-

bases, and, on the other,

media archaeology and

theories of networks,

gaming, and wares both

hard and soft.”

Moretti is the author of

two books that argue for

computational analysis

in the humanities:

Graphs, Maps and Trees

(2007) and Distant Read-

ing (2013). The LA

Review of Books

interviewed him in their

March 2 issue, continu-

ing a long conversation

about digital humanities

within their pages.

They’ve featured both

sides of the issue, pub-

lishing a controversial

editorial in 2012 called

DH in the la review of books

Thanks Obama! Gov’t offers open data

“Open data” is a hot

topic in DAH and DH,

particularly as a grow-

ing number of museums

and other cultural

institutions make their

collections information

available online.

This push is part of a

larger social movement

towards freedom of

information. Wired mag-

azine reports on a new

open data initiative

spearheaded by the

White House, called

“The Opportunity

Project.” The goal?

Empowering creative

developers to make

apps that serve the

public good.

The article quotes a

thought-provoking

statement by Chief US

Data Scientist DJ Patil:

“We should think of

technology as neither

radical nor revolution-

ary, unless it impacts

every single person.”

Accessibility is the key.

a monthly digital art history digest

Friday, March 25 Volume 1, Issue 2

Quadrivium

Featured this week:

All about open data and

computational analysis!

Links to available data

sets and best practices for

building your own sets!

Plus, a hands-on guide

for making your own

interactive screen!

Inside this issue:

Cover story 1

Open data 1-2

Museums 2-3

Hands-on 3

Opportunities 4

Because plotting data by hand is the worst.

The French government has

also made large data sets

available to the public, in-

cluding a long list of build-

ings designated as historical

monuments.

The Monumentes historiques

application created by

French developers (Antidot)

makes use of this open data

as well as other information

from the semantic web,

accessing seven different

sources to provide tour-

ists with an easy-to-use

guide to thousands of

French monuments. Their

blog, linked above,

explains how they did it.

And the application is

online and ready to use!

the user to “move

through a landscape

made of artworks” as if

they were a geographical

map, but organized by

purchase date rather than

physical location in the

museum. It’s a fascinat-

ing—and gorgeous—way

to explore and discover.

Graphs and charts are traditional

methods of data visualization,

but there are many more options.

The San Francisco-based design

firm Stamen has created a new

way of looking at museum

collections—one that keeps the

focus on the artworks without

losing the scope of big data. The

“SFMOMA Artscope” allows

Exploring French monuments with open data

Sfmoma artscope: a different kind of map

Quantifying the museum of modern art

a simple, entertaining

introduction to the ma-

nipulation of museum

open data. As he points

out, Van Gogh’s master-

piece “Starry Night”

goes by another title in

museum records:

“ObjectID 79802,” just

one painting out of

thousands. When we

consider each painting

in the MoMA as a data

point in a larger narra-

tive rather than a work

of individual genius, we

can ask different ques-

tions and get different

answers. Roeder

presents a couple of

graphs as examples,

mostly focusing on

materials, dimensions,

and the collecting prac-

tices of the museum.

This can help us under-

stand how each works

fits into the big picture.

Statistician Nate Silver

became a household name

for his political analysis,

but his website FiveThir-

tyEight takes number

crunching far beyond elec-

tions. One offering from

staff writer Oliver Roeder

is “A Nerd’s Guide to the

2,229 Paintings at MoMA.”

Leaving aside fraught dis-

cussions of the term

“nerd,” Roeder’s article is

“At the museum

today, we’re armed

not only with our love

of art, but also with

this big pile of data.

We’ll appreciate the

beauty, to be sure. But

if you have questions,

I’ll also turn to the

hard numbers for

answers.“

Page 2

Quadrivium

Discover this thirteenth-century abbey via the app!

So you want to get into

the data analysis game?

You can start with an

open data set, but you

can also create your own

set on the subject of

your choice.

As you might imagine,

you’ll need to start off

with a spreadsheet.

However, proceed with

caution: the categories

and vocabulary that you

choose at the outset can

make or break your

project.

As part of a workshop

held at the Michelle

Smith Collaboratory for

Visual Culture, UMD

grad student Matthew

Lincoln has created a

succinct, helpful guide

to building tidy data

sets that can be easily

read by software.

Above all, do not be

afraid to build a sprawl-

ing spreadsheet. As

Matt says in his presen-

tation, stick to “one vari-

able per column and one

observation per row.” A

data set with fifteen

columns may give you a

headache, but your

software will read it

quite easily.

This rule is reminiscent

Best practices for tidy data

Make your own interactive screen

galleries that want to

embrace new media, but

are restricted by their

budgets. They are also

fun projects for students

looking to build their

resume skills.

Sear provides several

different tutorials, but

the “Interactive Screen”

is a great place to start.

In his words: “Large

museums can easily

spend upwards of £50K

on a large touch screen

display setup and cus-

tom software. This pro-

ject demonstrates how

to build a simple version

for less than £400.”

Software is fun, but why

not try dabbling in hard-

ware, too? Developer

John Sear, a techie

working in the realms of

games as well as

museums, has a number

of DIY museum-tech

tutorials on his website.

These are great solutions

for small museums and

On the left, you’ll

find one possible

spreadsheet

format suggested

in the tidy data

tutorial. Data like

this combines

“traditional” art

historical

approaches with

computational

analysis. One

cannot not replace

the other!

Page 3

Volume 1, Issue 2

of the old computer science

mantra “garbage in, garbage

out.” If you don’t put solid

information into your data set,

you aren’t going to get solid

information out on the other

side. Be detail-oriented, proof-

read, and when in doubt—

write yourself a note. Your

future self won’t remember all

of your choices along the way,

so keep a record of your

process as you go!

E-mail: ldupertu@umd.edu

Twitter: @MSCollaboratory

@UMDArtHistory

@corpusbones

Michelle Smith Collaboratory for

Visual Culture

4213 Parren Mitchell Art/

Sociology Building

College Park, MD 20742

Quadrivium is a monthly digest of digital art history news produced by Lind-

say Dupertuis, a Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland, College Park. It

is supported by the Michelle Smith Collaboratory for Visual Culture, located

within the Department of Art History and Archaeology.

Quadrivium aims to share interesting projects and new tools in digital art

history (DAH) and digital humanities (DH) with a broad audience of readers.

Ideally, the newsletter will inspire readers to explore the field on their own

and consider how these new methods might change their approach to the

humanities. We welcome comments and contributions!

Visualizing Venice Summer School, June 8-20, 2016

Supported by The Getty Foundation, The Wired! Lab at Duke University, Università Iuav di Venezia, the University of

Padua, and Venice International University are collaborating on a Summer Workshop that will train Art, Architectural

and Urban Historians with the digital media that can enhance or transform their research questions and their capacity to

communicate narratives about objects, places and spaces to the public. This fifth annual 12-day workshop teaches a

range of digital skills in mapping, 3D modeling, mobile application & web development, and time based media author-

ship to enable participants to engage historical questions with emerging digital tools. The course will engage with the

Ghetto of Venice on the 500th anniversary of its creation as case study for training with a variety of technologies and

applications.

Wading in DAH Water: A Digital Art History Workshop for Curious Beginners

The Michelle Smith Collaboratory’s DAH workshop will return for its second year on May 23-27, 2016. Conceived as a

gentle and easy introduction to some facets of digital art history, akin to slowly entering a swimming pool via the shal-

low section, this four-day event will cover some of the more popular areas of DAH, such as mapping, virtual modeling,

augmented reality, online exhibitions, database-building and visualization. All are welcome!

Upcoming Opportunities