Object, Text, and Image in the Digital Age
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Date
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Location
Auditorium 3 Calouste Gulbenkian FoundationThe event will be broadcast live and available on this page. This event will be held in English, with simultaneous interpretation to Portuguese.
Digitisation of collections is now a major priority for many museums across the world. The potential benefits are huge: from easy access to their collections for researchers and the general public, to connecting objects and collections in new and revealing ways.
Yet the digital object is not the same as the physical object and the process of digitisation transforms the original item. In particular, the physicality of the object is neglected and it is reduced instead to images and texts. This process raises a vast range of questions. What is gained and lost in making the transformation from physical to digital? Are we prioritising the digitisation of objects that are more easily rendered as image and text?
The field of ancient numismatics is particularly advanced in the process of digitisation. These advances are partly due to coins’ almost unique status as a combination of image, text, and object, and offer an important reference for the field of Digital Humanities as applied to museums.
With this conference, other corpus of objects such as Greek vases or cuneiform tablets will be discussed. Finally we will address the crucial role of documents and archives associated with art, and the inspiring possibilities of digital technologies uses (3D modelling, scanning, etc.) for the understanding of museum collections.
Speakers
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Alicia Hughes
Art historian and curator specialized in histories of collecting and image-making in the 18th century. She has a PhD in History of Art from the University of Glasgow. Previous roles include Curatorial Assistant at The Hunterian. She’s currently Project Curator at the British Museum on the project ‘Sloane Lab’. She was also responsible for the recent touring exhibition and redisplay on Sir Hans Sloane and his legacy at the British Museum.
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Andrew Meadows
Fellow in Ancient History at New College, Director of the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents of the University of Oxford, Honorary Curator at the Ashmolean Museum, and member of the International Numismatic Council. He has directed numerous digital research projects, including OCRE, ARCH, and most recently the CHANGE project funded by the ERC. He was co-founder of ‘nomisma.org’, a Linked Open Data resource for many other numismatic projects.
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Beatriz Saraiva
Beatriz holds a BA in Art History from NOVA University Lisbon and is taking a MA in Museology at the same university. In her professional career, she has collaborated with institutions such as the Arpad Szenes-Vieira da Silva Foundation and the Portuguese Cinematheque. She joined the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in 2018, where she has worked in the Collection’s Management and Communication departments. She is also responsible for the Museum’s Online Collections project.
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Daniel Alves
Associate professor with habilitation in the Department of History and researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History (NOVA FCSH). He has a MA in 19th Century History and a PhD in Contemporary History. He is editor of the Journal of Digital Humanities, published by Edinburgh University Press. He coordinates the Digital Humanities Lab and is a consultant for ROSSIO Digital Research Infrastructure. He is Deputy Director for Technological Infrastructures and Digital Transition at NOVA FCSH.
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Els Angenon
Head of the eCollections and digitization team of the Royal museums for Art and History (RMAH). She’s in charge of the implementation of the digital strategy: management, valorisation and preservation of the digital documentation relating to the scientific collections of the RMAH. She has a coordinating role between scientists and documentation services with regard to inventory and digitization of collections. Els is working on innovation related to the field of images of collection objects.
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Federico Taverni
Graduated in Conservation of Cultural Heritage with a PhD in Cultural Heritage from the University of Bologna. Since 2017, he has been working as a digital media specialist at the Egyptian Museum of Turin. He is mainly involved in the digitisation of the collection through the creation of 3D models (both with photogrammetry techniques and 3D scanners), and in the creation of multimedia content aimed at supporting the research and study of the artefacts in the collection.
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George Watson
Ancient historian and numismatist. He has held teaching and research posts at universities in Frankfurt, Oxford, Swansea, and Lancaster, and he has advised numerous museums across Europe regarding their coin collections. He has a strong interest in digital numismatics and has worked on various projects in this sphere, including the ‘Roman Provincial Coinage’ online project, and the ‘NUMiD’ project in Germany.
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Inês Fialho Brandão
Coordinator of the Cultural Mediation and Digital Strategy Service of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum. She researches the representation of otherness in museum spaces, focusing on enforced migratory movements and the restitution of cultural assets. She has a PhD in History from Maynooth University and a master’s in Islamic Studies and Museology from New York University. She is part of the Scientific Advisory Council for the Observatory on History Teaching in Europe (Council of Europe).
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Karsten Dahmen
German numismatist and deputy director of the Münzkabinett (Numismatic Collection) of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Berlin State Museums). He joined the numismatic collection of this museum in 2005. His curatorial responsibilities are Late Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic coins, and foreign medals. His responsibilities include the development of the cabinet’s online catalogue, the Normdatenportal. He is a member of the steering committee of ‘nomisma.org’.
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Maxence Garde
Curator in charge of the Antiquities collection at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Maxence Garde has a degree in Classical Archaeology and a postgraduate specialisation in Ancient Egypt from the École du Louvre, in Paris. From the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the British Museum, his professional experience is centred on issues related to the history of museum collections and the protection of global cultural heritage.
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Tyler Jo Smith
Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Virginia and co-Director of ‘Kerameikos.org’. Her research considers Greek figure-decorated pottery within its ancient and modern cultural contexts with particular attention to performance. She is the author of ‘Religion in the Art of Archaic and Classical Greece’ and co-editor of the ‘Companion to Greek Art’. She is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Classical Studies, London, and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.