by Jon Lackman | 13 May 2010 | Books, Conferences
In a recent issue of Art Documentation (28:2), Maureen Whalen warns that
Many studies have been conducted about the ill effects of being on the ‘wrong’ side of the digital divide. In the field of art history, it appears that the fetish for the printed book and a reluctance to incorporate digital technologies into the field of study are badges of honor rather than obstacles to be overcome. The field, however, is small with a greater supply of professionals than there are employment opportunities for them. Art history is only one discipline within the greater world of art. Visual cultural studies and new media art, while still somewhat in flux as disciplines, are capturing the interests of both students and publishers … [O]ne has to wonder just how bad it will get for art history scholars before the need to accept, adopt, and support electronic publishing emerges … The fundamental problems [with electronic publishing] are not permissions and color management, or even documentation that online distribution is faster, better, and/or cheaper. The real issue is the field’s leadership (or lack thereof) concerning experimentation with digital media and collaboration with others to maximize its usefulness to art history.
My impression is that, generally speaking, art historians have not cottoned to recent technology as enthusiastically as their counterparts in the humanities. That said, there is a European Science Foundation conference planned for October, “Networked Humanities: Art History in the Web,” that aims “to bring together art historians and other researchers (including digital humanists) in order to investigate the intersection between the web and collaborative research processes, via an examination of electronic media-based cooperative models in the history of art and beyond.” Invited speakers include Robert Stein of the Indianapolis Museum of Arts, who will talk on “Crowd-Sourcing Art History: Research and Application of Social Tagging for Museums”
Art Historians must get on the digital train for it will leave the station with out them. I am a digital alien teaching in world of digital native students ,we must engage them in multiple formats.
Scholars must share their information for the good of the dicipline, and in the spirit of collaboration.
A timely warning.
I think such a conference is long overdue given the problems with disseminating research through print- the protracted nature of the process in general.
My sense is that art historians in museums are ahead of those of us in colleges and universities. I am quite impressed with many of the thematic essays in The Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, for example. This coming fall I am planning to use some of them to supplement textbooks in classes that I am teaching. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hi/te_index.asp?i=26