1,721,002 research outputs found
Introduction: a critique of digital practices and research infrastructures
No full textNo abstract available
Archaeological data work as continuous and collaborative practice
No full textThis dissertation critically examines the sociotechnical structures that archaeologists rely on to coordinate their research and manage their data. I frame data as discursive media that communicate archaeological encounters, which enable archaeologists to form productive collaboration relationships. All archaeological activities involve data work, as archaeologists simultaneously account for the decisions and circumstances that framed the information they rely on to perform their own practices, while anticipating how their information outputs will be used by others in the future. All archaeological activities are therefore loci of practical epistemic convergence, where meanings are negotiated in relation to communally-held objectives.
Through observations of and interviews with archaeologists at work, and analysis of the documents they produce, I articulate how data sharing relates distributed work experiences as part of a continuum of practice. I highlight the assumptions and value regimes that underlie the social and technical structures that support productive archaeological work, and draw attention to the inseparable relationship between the management of labour and data. I also relate this discursive view of data sharing to the open data movement, and suggest that it is necessary to develop new collaborative commitments pertaining to data publication and reuse that are more in line with disciplinary norms, expectations, and value regimes.Ph.D
Affective Metadata for Object Experiences in the Art Museum
No full textAffective metadata for object experiences in the art museum explores the notion of affect as related to visitor experiences of artworks in a museum gallery setting, resulting in the specification of a data structure and knowledge organization system capable of methodically documenting these experiences. This proposed system presents an interdisciplinary view of museum object documentation that pushes the boundaries of what is conceptualized as object information worthy of documentation in order to adequately account for affective knowledge. Through an analysis of the literature – including affect and affect modeling, art museum information systems, and empirical aesthetics – and a visitor research study at the Art Gallery of Ontario, this thesis argues that affect needs to be considered as a salient dimension of art museum information infrastructures and metadata standards. One possible model for developing such a structure and corresponding standard is presented and validated using the results of this visitor research study.M.M.St
Affective Metadata for Object Experiences in the Art Museum
Get PDFAffective metadata for object experiences in the art museum explores the notion of affect as related to visitor experiences of artworks in a museum gallery setting, resulting in the specification of a data structure and knowledge organization system capable of methodically documenting these experiences. This proposed system presents an interdisciplinary view of museum object documentation that pushes the boundaries of what is conceptualized as object information worthy of documentation in order to adequately account for affective knowledge. Through an analysis of the literature – including affect and affect modeling, art museum information systems, and empirical aesthetics – and a visitor research study at the Art Gallery of Ontario, this thesis argues that affect needs to be considered as a salient dimension of art museum information infrastructures and metadata standards. One possible model for developing such a structure and corresponding standard is presented and validated using the results of this visitor research study.M.M.St
The Digital Curation of Broadcasting Archives at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: Curation Culture and Evaluative Practice
No full textDigital curation scholarship has become interested in how technical and computational processes and systems intersect with human and social factors in digital curation practices across curation domains. This dissertation contributes to this knowledge by examining the digital curation of broadcasting news archives, a considerable but underexplored curation domain. The study is based on participant observation and interview data collected at the news archive of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). The data is analyzed using a practice theory approach that combines social, material, and cultural theoretical perspectives.
Specifically, the dissertation examines how archivists at the CBC evaluate and enrich information in the context of their daily work, and it describes the institutional, organizational, and technological elements constitutive of this context. The analysis reveals how the CBC’s transformation from analogue to digital infrastructure has redefined the organizational roles and the boundaries of expertise at the news archive. It further reveals how the CBC’s institutional identity sets the goals of digital curation and how digital broadcasting systems are adapted to reflect preestablished procedural and symbolic traditions of work. Lastly, the dissertation examines the constitutive rules and heuristics of evaluation at the news archive and finds that evaluative practices are consequential during all stages of the curation lifecycle but are particularly salient at the stages of acquisition (when value is established), cataloguing (when value is enriched), and reuse (when value is negotiated to fit into a new context).
Based on these findings two arguments are formulated. It is argued, first, that aside from being supported by socio-technical systems, digital curation practices are also supported by cultural systems. These cultural systems sustain collective action and situated cognition by providing vocabularies of motives and strategies for action. They are shaped by normative institutional frameworks, transmitted through material artifacts, and refracted through subjective interpretations. Second, it is argued that evaluative practices are an integral part of digital curation and a prerequisite for enhancing the value of data and digital materials. They are interwoven with social and cultural processes, used in adaptive ways, and difficult to formalize, as such they will vary across curation domains and practice contexts.Ph.D
The Digital Curation of Broadcasting Archives at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: Curation Culture and Evaluative Practice
Get PDFDigital curation scholarship has become interested in how technical and computational processes and systems intersect with human and social factors in digital curation practices across curation domains. This dissertation contributes to this knowledge by examining the digital curation of broadcasting news archives, a considerable but underexplored curation domain. The study is based on participant observation and interview data collected at the news archive of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). The data is analyzed using a practice theory approach that combines social, material, and cultural theoretical perspectives.
Specifically, the dissertation examines how archivists at the CBC evaluate and enrich information in the context of their daily work, and it describes the institutional, organizational, and technological elements constitutive of this context. The analysis reveals how the CBC’s transformation from analogue to digital infrastructure has redefined the organizational roles and the boundaries of expertise at the news archive. It further reveals how the CBC’s institutional identity sets the goals of digital curation and how digital broadcasting systems are adapted to reflect preestablished procedural and symbolic traditions of work. Lastly, the dissertation examines the constitutive rules and heuristics of evaluation at the news archive and finds that evaluative practices are consequential during all stages of the curation lifecycle but are particularly salient at the stages of acquisition (when value is established), cataloguing (when value is enriched), and reuse (when value is negotiated to fit into a new context).
Based on these findings two arguments are formulated. It is argued, first, that aside from being supported by socio-technical systems, digital curation practices are also supported by cultural systems. These cultural systems sustain collective action and situated cognition by providing vocabularies of motives and strategies for action. They are shaped by normative institutional frameworks, transmitted through material artifacts, and refracted through subjective interpretations. Second, it is argued that evaluative practices are an integral part of digital curation and a prerequisite for enhancing the value of data and digital materials. They are interwoven with social and cultural processes, used in adaptive ways, and difficult to formalize, as such they will vary across curation domains and practice contexts.Ph.D
Curating Archaeological Knowledge in the Digital Continuum: from Practice to Infrastructure
No full textAs a “grand challenge” for digital archaeology, I propose the adoption of programmatic research
to meet the challenges of archaeological curation in the digital continuum, contingent on curation-enabled
global digital infrastructures, and on contested regimes of archaeological knowledge production and
meaning making. My motivation stems from an interest in the sociotechnical practices of archaeology,
viewed as purposeful activities centred on material traces of past human presence. This is exemplified
in contemporary practices of interpretation “at the trowel’s edge”, in epistemological reflexivity and in
pluralization of archaeological knowledge. Adopting a practice-centred approach, I examine how the
archaeological record is constructed and curated through archaeological activity “from the field to the
screen” in a variety of archaeological situations. I call attention to Çatalhöyük as a salient case study
illustrating the ubiquity of digital curation practices in experimental, well-resourced and purposefully
theorized archaeological fieldwork, and I propose a conceptualization of digital curation as a pervasive,
epistemic-pragmatic activity extending across the lifecycle of archaeological work. To address these
challenges, I introduce a medium-term research agenda that speaks both to epistemic questions of theory
in archaeology and information science, and to pragmatic concerns of digital curation, its methods,
and application in archaeology. The agenda I propose calls for multidisciplinary, multi-team, multiyear
research of a programmatic nature, aiming to re-examine archaeological ontology, to conduct focused
research on pervasive archaeological research practices and methods, and to design and develop curation
functionalities coupled with existing pervasive digital infrastructures used by archaeologists. It has a
potential value in helping to establish an epistemologically coherent framework for the interdisciplinary
field of archaeological curation, in aligning archaeological ontologies work with practice-based, agencyoriented
and participatory theorizations of material culture, and in matching the specification and design
of archaeological digital infrastructures with the increasingly globalized, ubiquitous and pervasive digital
information environment and the multiple contexts of contemporary meaning-making in archaeology
Art Worlds as Social Meshwork: Contemporary Chinese Art Practice, Interaction, and Communication
Get PDFThe predominant representations and discourses of contemporary Chinese art practice, shaped by academia and market-driven media, tend to adhere to limiting categorizations, values, and conventions. This impedes an open, contextualized, and timely understanding of the field. This research explores independent and innovative Chinese art practices that respond to the complexities of post-socialist China and the global neoliberal world. These practices weave autonomy and flexible meshworks, interconnect with both established and evolving art worlds, and often incline to socially engaged and networked art practices.The study uses a combination of qualitative methods, including participant observation, autoethnography, and life story semi-structured interviews with sixteen art practitioners in Guangzhou and Shanghai, supplemented by informal communications with other art practitioners. The analysis is based on inductive, intensive, and meticulous case studies.
Drawing from the ideas of Howard Becker, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and Tim Ingold, the study investigates the evolution of Chinese art worlds from the perspectives of art practitioners. It shows that Chinese art worlds are shaped by two co-existing infrastructures: the socialist and the global neoliberal, market-driven art infrastructure. Amid these two infrastructures, art practitioners negotiate with established art worlds and effectively create autonomous and non-integrated art worlds, characterized by fluid boundaries, akin to various forms of organic rhizomes sprouting and evolving in the interstices of society and art practice.
The study traces the evolution of socially engaged and networked art practices in China over the past decade, revealing their patterns of change, meshworking, and rhizomatic and nomadic development. It also shows how Chinese art practitioners ingeniously repurpose media, particularly WeChat, as tools for communication, creative resources for production, and social arenas for engagement in their practices.
The research provides new perspectives on contemporary Chinese art worlds and illustrates how they respond to postsocialist realities and globalized neoliberal art worlds. During this process, non-integrated art worlds emerged within socially engaged and networked art practices, coexisting and evolving along with the established neoliberal art world.Ph.D
A new agenda for museum information systems
Get PDFMuseums are massive repositories of complex, heterogeneous and multi-faceted information on materal culture; many museums are aleady creating large computerised archives, storing this information. Yet, if museum information systems are to be used effectively for cultural research and for the dissemination of knowledge to the public, they must overcome the limitations of currently used museum documentation and collection management systems. For this purpose, it is argued, firstly, that museum information systems should provide adequate support for the complexity of museum information, demonstrated in such traits as specialisation, part aggregation, temporality, spatiality, dense conceptual relationships, sujectivity and context dependency, multimediality and textuality; secondly, that they should provide access to existing, currently paper-bound information, not just normalised descriptions; thirdly, that the same integrated system should cater equally for scholarly research as for communication with the museum visitor
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