Digital Transformations

Andrew Prescott

AHRC Strategic Themes Established in 2010 following AHRC strategic

consultation

Four themes: Science in Culture; Translating Cultures; Care for the Future; and Digital Transformations

Themes work closely with the Connected Communities programme, a cross-council programme led by AHRC

Also connections with Digital Economy programme, led by EPSRC

Role of theme leader fellows

Work under the AHRCs Digital Transformations theme explores the potential of digital

technologies to transform research in the arts and humanities

and seeks to ensure that arts and humanities research is at the forefront of tackling such crucial

issues such as intellectual property, cultural memory and identity, and communication and

creativity in a digital age.

AHRC Digital Transformations theme Funding Calls to Date

Highlights for research networks and fellowships from 2011-13

Exploratory grants, 2012, across whole theme

Large grant awards for beacon projects, 2013: Digital Panopticon; Fragmented Heritage; Transforming Musicology

Big Data Capital Funding programme, Co-Creation Awards (with Connected Communities programme), 2013

Big Data awards, 2014

Amplification awards, 2014

Small grants (closing shortly)

Future of the Academic Book (with British Library), 2014: study to be undertaken by UCL and Kings College London with Research Information Network

The impact of the different types of penal punishments on the lives of 66,000 people sentenced at The Old Bailey between 1780 and 1875

Transferable methods for understanding and exploiting complex bodies of genealogical, biometric, and administrative data (eg linking, visualisation)

Addressing major issues with contemporary policy significance

www.digitalpanopticon.org

using crowdsourcing techniques to enable surveys of large-scale archaeological sites of significance in early history of human evolution

development of technique for automated refitting of images of archaeological fragments

experimenting with new technologies eg high resolution aerial imagery

www.fragmentedheritage.com

How emerging technologies for working with music as sound and score can transform musicology

Portfolio of projects ranging from lute music to Wagner

Exploring how musical communities on the Web engage with their music by employing Music Information Retrieval tools in developing a social platform for furthering musical discussion online

www.transforming-musicology.org

Working with existing data: Standards for Networking Ancient Prosopographies

(SNAP): snapdrgn.net

Working with existing data: SAMUELS (Semantic Annotation and Mark-Up for

Enhancing Lexical Searches)

Deep Film Access project: University of Brighton

New methods: 3D imaging of standing stones in Wales from uploaded photographs, with 3D printing of models:

heritagetogether.org

Helen Douglas, The Pond at Deuchar, part of the Transforming Artist Books project:

http://helendouglas.onlineculture.co.uk/ttp/ttp.html

The Secret Life of a Weather Datum: secretlifeofdata.wordpress.com

The Gutenberg Bible led to religious reformation while the Web appears to be leading towards

social and economic reformation. But the Digital Industrial revolution, because of the issues and

phenomena surrounding the Web and its interactions with society, is occurring at lightning

speed with profound impacts on society, the economy, politics, and more.

Michael Brodie, Verizon

I believe that the most useful and novel inventions and improvements of the present day are mere progressive steps in a highly wrought and highly advanced system, suggested by, and dependent on, other previous steps, their whole value and the means of their application probably dependent on the success of some or many other inventions, some old, some new In most cases they result from a demand which circumstances happen to create. Most good things are being thought of by many persons at the same time.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Model of Newcomen Steam Engine at the

University of Glasgow repaired by James Watt

in 1765

Steve Jobs as the heir of James Watt: New Yorker, November 14, 2011

Digital transformations refers to (and misinterprets) the disruptive models of Christensen

The process of innovation is frequently a continuum of incremental development (Steve Jobs as tinkerer): particularly true in arts and humanities

What is the relationship of projects to the digital / knowledge economy?

Successive attempts to promote AHRC involvement with digital programmes have relied on rhetoric of innovation: do we need to develop fresh arguments (eg Dig Panopticons policy questions)

Questioning rhetorics of transformation and innovation

Notwithstanding anxieties about quantification in arts and humanities, use of visualisation makes research increasingly an interactive and aesthetic experience, and design is key component

At beginning of theme, data seemed increasingly evanescent and quicksilver-like. But the digital continuum is a constantly surprising one, and methods of exploring the materiality of data have become increasingly prominent as the theme has developed

Digital Materialities

tangible-memories.com

http://vimeo.com/80058198

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCYn7oQlLiA

http://www.dezeen.com/2014/03/31/imogen-heap-gloves-mini-frontiers-movie/

1990s cry was Access not Collections and access has been another hardy perennial of digital rhetoric

Theme sought to move beyond digitisation. Consequently, strong emphasis on building collections, shifting their boundaries and remediating them

Creating new collections: recording historic and cultural material, collecting data created by individuals

Placing collections in new media and contexts (internet of things)

Reflecting on the nature of existing collections and archives

Marginalia Machine: http://vimeo.com/101507221

Re-Collecting

Chris Watson, In St Cuthberts Time: a seventh-century soundscape of Lindisfarne

https://soundcloud.com/experimedia/chris-watson-in-st-cuthberts

Virtual Pauls Cross Project: digital re-creation of John Donnes Gunpowder Day Sermon, 1622:

http://vpcp.chass.ncsu.edu/listen-from-the-cross-yard/

http://www.meagreresource.com/other-projects/tape/nctrc.html

Nottingham Tape Club