Hi Rob and everyone, During my weekend swim in the week's Netbehaviour list discussion I came across your blog post about Art Open Data http://www.furtherfield.org/netbehaviour/art-open-data-0
I was reminded of a presentation given recently by Gary Hall (author of Digitise this Book) about emerging trends in Arts and Humanities research as a result of the new openness (networks+academia+markets). He suggested that academics' engagement with the proliferating contextual data brought about by industrial-scale digitising, databasing and archiving (the example he gave was historians of literature tracking the changing frequency of words in newly digitised 18th-20th century novels) might have the unintended consequence of separating Arts and Humanities from their traditions of critical, philosophical and ethical enquiry. There's just so much data to play with- one can get lost in the beauty of the patterning and the task of processing and organising data into some/any coherent meaning. Interesting to think that while digital networks may promise to provide humanity with the perfect tool for developing collaboration and purposeful collective action (arguably, just when we need it most) that they may also effectively throw up diverting mirages and obstacles to counteract purposeful action in direct inverse proportion. Please will you contribute your definition to Rosalind's Lexicon, recently revived in the new website?! http://www.furtherfield.org/get-involved/lexicon Thanks Rob : ) best Ruth
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