Speaker Series
Overview
Matt Knutzen, March 21
Rosalind Picard, April 3
Katherine Behar, May 2
Text and code translations in any digital practice are managed in marks, functions, and strings. But so much more happens in these domains of translation. Sophisticated and sublime.
We can ask how our computers interact with us, as we ponder the ways we interact with our computers. We now have access to digitized global cultural heritage materials, and interfaces for archives and collections once available on-site only. And we will experience art through hypertexts, digital repositories, and multimedia installations.
As the humanities intersect with sciences and technology-related fields, our engagement with the humanities in all areas becomes tech-savvy: archaeology, art history, classics, comparative literature, history, music, performing arts, philosophy, postcolonial studies, religious studies, theatre, and more.
Mew messages become possible, access becomes prioritized, and different information can be managed or ignored. When text collides with code we might describe a process of “awaking code and making language aware.”
March 21, 8:00 pm in Max Lowenthal Hall, 12-3215
April 3, 8:00pm, 76-1125
May 2, 8:00pm, 76-1125
"Where Text and Code Collide: The Digital Humanities Distinguished Speaker Series"
Matt Knutzen, 8:00 pm in Max Lowenthal Hall, 12-3215.
Matt Knutzen works in the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division of the New York Public Library, one of the world’s premier map collections in terms of size, scope, unique holdings, diversity and intensity of use. Established in 1898, holdings include more than 433,000 sheet maps and 20,000 books and atlases published between the 15th and 21st centuries.
He recently announced the launch of a project to align historical maps to the digital we use today. Georectification or "warping." He descripes this process by which "tile by tile, we're stitching old atlas sheets into historical layers, that researchers can explore with pan-and-zoom functionality, comparing yesterday's cityscape with today's." Eventually what is geospatial discovery may include tools for tracing building footprints and archives may include ephemera like newspapers, menus, photopgraphy.
According to Knutsen, however, the "most exciting aspects of this project is its participatory nature, meaning that anybody with a computer can create an account, log in, and begin warping and tracing maps." Better yet, your the contribution remains in place, a part of a larger project! Learn how to rectify a map yourself.
This project was the recipient of the 2012 cutting edge technology in library services award from the office of information policy of the American Library Association.
http://www.nypl.org/blog/2012/06/13/nyc-historical-gis-project/
"Where Text and Code Collide: The Digital Humanities Distinguished Speaker Series"
Rosalind Picard, 8:00pm, 76-1125
Sponsored by the RIT Project for the Digital Humanities, the College of Liberal Arts, and the Gannett Endowment for the Humanities
Professor Rosalind W. Picard, Sc.D. is founder and director of the Affective Computing Research Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Laboratory, and leader of the new and growing Autism & Communication Technology Initiative at MIT. She is co-founder, chief scientist and director of Affectiva, Inc., making technology to help measure and communicate emotion.
Picard holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering with highest honors from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and master's and doctorate degrees, both in electrical engineering and computer science, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The author of over two hundred scientific articles and chapters in multidimensional signal modeling, computer vision, pattern recognition, machine learning, human-computer interaction, and affective computing, Picard is an international leader in envisioning and inventing innovative technology.
Picard interacts regularly with industry and has consulted for companies such as Apple, AT&T, BT, HP, i.Robot, and Motorola. She is a popular keynote speaker, and her group's achievements have been featured in forums for the general public such as The New York Times, The London Independent, National Public Radio, Scientific American Frontiers, ABC's Nightline and World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, Time, Vogue, Wired, Voice of America Radio, New Scientist, and BBC's "The Works" and "The Big Byte."
"Where Text and Code Collide: The Digital Humanities Distinguished Speaker Series"
Katherine Behar, 8:00pm, 76-1125
Sponsored by the RIT Project for the Digital Humanities, the College of Liberal Arts, and the Gannett Endowment for the Humanities
Katherine Behar is an interdisciplinary new media and performance artist and is Assistant Professor of New Media at Baruch College. Her performances, interactive installations, and videos mix low and high technologies to portray the condition of living sensuously in digital media. Her projects mix low and high technologies, creating hybrid forms that are by turns humorous and sensuous.
Katherine's work appears at festivals, galleries, performance spaces, and art centers worldwide, including UNOACTU in Dresden; Judson Church in New York; The Big Screen Project in New York; Feldman Gallery + Project Space in Portland; De Balie Centre for Culture and Politics in Amsterdam; the Chicago Cultural Center; the Digital Live Art Festival in Leeds; the Swiss Institute in Rome; the National Museum of Art in Cluj-Napoca; and others. Her work has been supported by the Franklin Furnace Fund, the U.S. Consulate General in Leipzig, the Illinois Arts Council, and the Featured Performance Award from the Cleveland Performance Art Festival.
Behar serves as the Digital Fellow at Art Journal, and is a Baruch Faculty Fellow at the Rubin Museum of Art
In addition to her creative work, Behar writes on topics pertaining to embodiment and technology, cyborgian ethics, emerging and obsolete technologies, and feminist media critique. Her writing has been published in Media-N, Parsons Journal for Information Mapping, Visual Communication Quarterly, EXTENSIONS: The Online Journal for Embodied Technology, and in conference proceedings for Digital Arts and Culture, SPIE, and Cyberworlds.
Behar received an MFA in Combined Media from the Department of Art at Hunter College (2009); she holds an MA in Media Ecology from the Department of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University (2006), and a BFA in Studio Art from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2000).
