Appel à communication: Do we really need Digital Art History?

The field of Digital Art history (DAH) is currently experiencing a notable shift towards establishing its autonomy as a distinct discipline. However, its survival is challenged by the limitations of its investigations. The lack of relationships between computational effort and traditional analysis often limits the generation of novel insight. DAH risks becoming a mere spectacle when it relies solely on stunning visualizations without engaging in rigorous research questions. Conversely, art history limits itself from harnessing robust methodologies by disregarding computational approaches.

The digital approach increasingly demands advanced technical skills, thereby often placing art historians in a position where they lack the means and expertise to engage with it. Yet, art historians possess a keen awareness of the pressing issues within the discipline and possess the knowledge of which corpuses are relevant for addressing them. They could potentially provide their questions and corpuses to experts in DAH.

Hence, it is crucial to establish more frequent and substantive opportunities for collaboration between these two approaches. The Artl@s/Visual Contagions Conversation Series aims to cultivate a convergence between the field of Digital Art History and the discipline of Art History. The exchange of ideas and results among digital art history specialists, art historians, and the audience fosters a deeper understanding of the possibilities and implications of computational methodologies in the study of art history.

The program and recordings of the Series’ First Semester (2023) can be accessed at https://www.unige.ch/visualcontagions/seminars/dah-conversation.

Each event facilitates a unique encounter between two experts engaged in overlapping subject areas but employing markedly different methodologies. The aim is to foster collaborations and a heightened mutual understanding of the outcomes between the realms of Art History and Digital Art History.

We are calling for papers for the second semester of the Seminar. The sessions will take place on Fridays from 14:15 to 15:45 (European time) / 8:15 to 9:30 (Eastern Standard Time) via video conference, on January 26, February 23, March 15 , April 12, May 17, 2024.

Interested contributors are invited to send a one-page proposal for a 20 min. presentation, along with a short CV in the same document.

Proposals should be sent to the organizers of the Series: Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel (Beatrice.Joyeux-Prunel@unige.ch), Catherine Dossin (cdossin@purdue.edu), and Nicola Carboni (Nicola.Carboni@unige.ch) by November 20, 2023.