On 02/06/2011 02:47 PM, Ruth Catlow wrote: > > I was reminded of a presentation given recently by Gary Hall (author of > Digitise this Book) about emerging trends in Arts and Humanities
Oh I haven't read that! [adds to wish list] > 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 In other areas of computing, complexity is managed by successive modules and layers of code managed by successive projects. Each project can put people's different competences to best use. Humanities computing (and humanities data) can be handled similarly. Theory can easily declare itself to be the top of the stack so that its position will remain unthreatened. ;-) > 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. I think it is the competences and privileges of the hegemony of Theory and its adherents that humanities computing threatens rather than the possibility of critique, reflection and inquiry. > 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. As an artist and hacker I don't regard that as a bad thing. :-) As long as the experience is shared, which is where ensuring that the data and code are free-as-in-freedom comes in. > 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. I don't think that interesting conclusions indicated by datasets will remain uncommented on by those who prefer writing. And it often seems like we are already in a desert of the real, surrounded by beguiling textual mirages. > Please will you contribute your definition to Rosalind's Lexicon, > recently revived in the new website?! > http://www.furtherfield.org/get-involved/lexicon Sure. :-) - Rob. _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
