Decoding the Crosses of Clonmacnoise

My project grew out of a problem: I wanted to know more about an artifact than what was available. This summer I visited the early Christian monastic site Clonmacnoise, located in County Offaly, Ireland, as part of an archaeological fieldwork program. There were many incredible ruins at the site, and I wanted to learn more about one, the remains of an 8th-century high cross. All the carved scenes and images on the cross were non-Christian, which surprised me. The description of the cross at the visitor’s center comprised just a few sentences and left me with a lot more questions. Since then, I have searched for more information about the iconography of that cross. I have also learned more about the images on the two other high crosses at this site, and this gave me the idea for this project.

I would like to create a website and archive that allows visitors to identify and “decode” the scenes and decorations on Irish high crosses. My inspiration for this project is, in part, a site that has generated 3D images of the structures and artifacts at Clonmacnoise. I recently learned that one artifact’s 3D images has a tooltip that reveals the specifics and background of its design. This is useful as even the Christian iconography is not always recognizable; a scene can contain locally influenced interpretations of a biblical story rather than more contemporary depictions. And some iconography is drawn not from the Bible but from local or regional history, or even from Classical and Norse mythology. The amazingly intricate and classically Irish interlaced designs can sometimes contain curious elements, too, including elements of human or animal bodies, or food, or weaponry.

My project would add the tooltip feature to images of the other two high crosses at the site to reveal expert interpretations of the images. It would also establish an iconography archive. Archiving the artwork of the crosses would allow researchers to quickly make comparisons and connections among craftspeople, locations and regional artistic influences. This would aid scholarship beyond Ireland, as early monks sometimes visited central and northern Europe and returned with artistic inspirations based on what they observed. Also, Ireland was the subject of raids by the Vikings, the English, and continental European factions; these influences can sometimes be seen in Irish culture and art.

Thinking about future plans for this project, a website like this would also be a helpful way to share monumental artifacts from the many Irish sites that are not staffed and are not even mapped. I was fortunate to visit a number of those sites as well; many are only known by local experts. Some of these localities are trying to attract more tourists, and a project like this could help raise interest. It would be amazing to collaborate with the Irish organization creating the 3D images and have these available to visitors as part of the archive as well.

My environmental scan found, besides the 3D image site, a few books with illustrations or photographs, and some large online repositories (the Getty, the Met, sites from Oxford and other universities), but I didn’t find one featuring or dedicated to cross imagery. If not unique, my project would at least be great to share with Clonmacnoise, whose visitors (almost 100,000 this year) would surely find a lot of learn and discuss after “decoding” the images on these ancient sculptural works of art.

AI/Algorithm Reading Response

Kate Crawford’s “Data” chapter from The Atlas of AI was an interesting read. One of the sections that stood out to me was the section on mug shots. Crawford discusses how the stories, context, and names behind these mugshots get lost or erased when they become data. The people whose mugshots are taken are reduced to data points which are often used in facial recognition training for machine learning systems. Crawford’s article reminds me of a section in Ruha Benjamin’s book Race After Technology, that I believe touches on how AI/Algorithms can be used to dehumanize an individual or their experiences.

The example shared is about a company called HireVue that employs an AI-powered program to analyze recorded interviews from prospective employees. To decide whom to flag as desirable hires and whom to reject, the program takes thousands of data points such as facial expression, posture, and vocal tone then compares the jobseekers’ scores to those of existing top-performing employees. Why would this be such a bad thing? Well, from an applicant’s perspective, the experience left much to be desired. The frustrating lack of human contact was one issue and a lack of transparency about how they were being evaluated or why they were rejected proved another. One job seeker expressed feeling a sense of worthlessness because “the company couldn’t even assign a person for a few minutes” (p.89) and shared how they questioned every small movement and micro-expression they made.

I think this demonstrates how important the human perspective is and how dangerous it could be to replace it with algorithms. Much like when a mug shot is taken and the individual is reduced to data, I believe the job seekers in the example weren’t seen as people by the AI program but rather as data to be read. I wouldn’t be surprised if the data captured from them was then used to train other similar models likely without these applicants being none the wiser.

Gaelic: Language, Land, and Data

My project will use an ArcGIS story map to walk through the history of Scottish Gaelic culture and geographic distribution of the language over time. ArcGIS storymaps are websites that allow the user to scroll through maps, animations, images, and texts in a semi-chronological manner. I encourage you to look through the gallery here for examples that best illustrate what a story map is: https://doc.arcgis.com/en/arcgis-storymaps/gallery/. Though the story map allows for a chronological narrative structure, it also allows for interaction from the user. Tabs at the top of the site allow the user to skip around at their leisure. Additionally, interactive maps can be embedded into the story.  

To this end, I wish to create a storymap that goes from the introduction of Gaelic language in Scotland in 500 AD through to the passing of the Gaelic Language Act in 2005. This will be done through historical events, legislature, the publication of literature and music, and other moments that changed the perception and prevalence of Gaelic over time. Each historical moment will be anchored in a location on the map of Scotland. The user will be zoomed into a specific part of the map as they move through history, taking a tour while moving through time. Finally, I hope to embed an interactive map of Scotland that shows the census data of Gaelic skill levels from 2001, 2011, and 2022. The user will be able to toggle which combination of skill level they wish to look at, total count of speakers, percentage of speakers per area, or percent change. This will allow the user to explore and visualize the data in different ways.  

Great work is already being done in the realm of Digital Humanities and Gaelic studies. For example, the Digital Archive of Scottish Gaelic (https://dasg.ac.uk/en) is an online repository of Gaelic texts, fieldwork materials such as interviews and surveys, as well as audio recordings of vernacular Gaelic. Scotland’s Map of Stories (https://mapofstories.scot/language/english/) is an interactive map of Scotland that links counties and towns to video recordings of stories in English, Scots, and Gaelic. These videos aim to keep the rich tradition of oral storytelling alive in a digital format. Additionally, the government website, https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/atlas/, has census maps that visualize Scotland’s census data, including language skills. I hope to contribute to this work by allowing a space for users to explore the entirety of the Gaelic census data while having historical contextual material all in one place. After learning about Gaelic history as it relates to geography, I hope the story map user will be interested in exploring and visualizing the change in language skills in different counties and pondering how these changes in geographic distribution affect Gaelic culture overall.  

GaelicLanguageMapsPPT.pptx

Heritage in Motion

Our project, Heritage in Motion, traces the origins and acquisition histories in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Asian Art collection. Artifacts in museums have been taken out of their cultural and historical contexts. Our map aims to make the cultural histories of artifacts accessible, promote transparency, and encourage conversations about repatriation.

The map will visualize the displacement of cultural objects due to colonialism and encourage discussion about ethical museum practices. In the initial phase, we will study 50 artifacts from the collection. The map will allow users to explore these histories through clickable markers that provide detailed acquisition histories, cultural contexts, and timelines. Users will be able to explore artifacts by geographic region, historical period, and artifact type. By combining these histories with interactive maps, we hope to create a tool that’s educational and engaging. 

Some challenges we might face are the accuracy of our data, maintaining cultural sensitivity, and technological limitations. We will ensure accuracy by using data from reliable sources, such as the MET database, and data cleaning. We will also collaborate with curators, historians, and cultural representatives to present artifacts respectfully and accurately. We will also perform quality assurance testing, collaborate with web developers, and follow accessibility standards. 

By sharing these histories in an engaging and interactive way, we hope to promote reflection on past colonial histories and encourage more ethical museum practices.  

@radhikakashyap @rabana

Workshop: Beginning Game Design with Python

Back in October, I attended a workshop from GC Digital Fellow teaching attendees how to use pygame. I had previously used RenPy, a Python framework for writing visual novels, but hadn’t had much luck trying to learn game engines such as Godot. Before the workshop, our instructor, Zach, provided us with a GitHub link with the assets we’d need as well as instructions to download the pygame software. In addition to the images we’d need to create our game – a Frogger clone – we’d find a copy of the finished code, which we would use as a reference when building the game from scratch.

On the day of the workshop, Zach patiently took us through developing each aspect of the game, from the basic variables that we’d need to plug in later to a basic class for objects in the game to character movement. Along the way, he would mention additional measures that we could take on our own time, such as sealing off all four sides of the screen from player movement (meaning that the player can’t go “out of bounds” so to speak). I would often find myself detouring to tweak aspects of my game so that I could gain a deeper understanding of how each part of the code worked.

While we didn’t have time to get through the whole game, we had set up each element of the game and had the final code to reference after the workshop ended. At the end, we were challenged to tweak this final code to create a more interesting game, which I wound up doing. I took the challenge to have the treasure chest (the goal to complete the level) appear in a random position after the first level. I had the enemies increase in speed as the levels progressed at different rates, and moving in different directions. I also changed their movement pattern to loop around when they left the screen rather than bounce back and forth. I added a level counter, and had the game loop back to the first level in the event that the player loses. Through the workshop, I had the foundation and freedom that I needed to truly play and explore in the software.

This workshop, which uses free software and shares assets and instructions through a public repository on GitHub, made me think of our previous discussion on Open Educational Resources. The materials are freely available, and even without the guidance of the workshop, people can learn how to get started with pygame. Furthermore, although the project itself starts out fairly linearly, this form of instruction allows the participants the freedom to pursue their own interests with the software. For me, this is the best way to learn programming – to be able to not only ask your own questions, but answer them as well.

game play screenshot from my game "Frog-man"

Project Proposal: The Digital ACS

The Digital ACS: Amplifying Community Strength

This online platform is intended for Children, Youth & Families impacted by the NYC Child Welfare system looking to connect with other community members, share their experiences, and browse for local resources, groups, and archival related media.

The goal of the platform is to create a digital communal space for Children Youth & Families that will

  1. A blogging site (would that be the best word?)
  2. An Archive of the published content and past content on other platforms
  3. A heat map to visualize the conversations as they come in and locate the already present online media

The “blogging” platform would include:

  1. Have the ability to post and comment/ react, like a blog, from people within the community
  2. Include a tagging feature for content. The tags will serve as a tool for browsing through conversations and categorizing content.
  3. Reactionary button to capture the audience approval/disapproval (thinking of something like verifying the content in a sense)
  4. Centralize and categorize stories published in major online media outlets from the past year in an easy-to-browse archive

The first phase of the project will focus on creating the blogging tool. The objectives of this phase are:

  1. Create a code of conduct: Build trust with our audience by communicating data transparency
  2. Establish clear web design, accessibility, and navigation
  3. Develop and Test the platform
  4. Create partnerships with stakeholders to promote platform

Importance:

There are many stories of families and their experiences within Child Welfare, however these stories are scattered all across the web. In the first phase the platform would provide a digital space for the community to share insights, resources, and stories. In additional phases the project would create a bridge between current families and past families of the system, by establishing an archive of past media and news articles, and lastly it will work towards visualizing the many stories, resources, and media of the New York City families impacted by Child Welfare, past & present, on a heat map.

The tools & resources that will be used are:

WordPress: Digital Platform

Plug in: DH Press

Canva: for preliminary web design

https://prezi.com/view/X4SF8sjkatiXcU7PA8iF

Reading Response – AI/Algorithmic Knowledge

Since our unit a few weeks ago on AI/Algorithmic Knowledge a couple of things have been stuck in my brain. Lauren Klein talked about using AI to take notes during doctors appointments that provide a summary at the end for the patients records. She talks about doctor burnout and how this would make their administrative tasks easier, giving them more time to actually practice medicine. This is clearly problem that needs to be addressed and AI could be the answer. I am already skeptical of AI chatbots/assistants, but I have serious concerns about who owns that AI and what kind of access they would have to medical records. What will happen when AI is able to have intimate knowledge of discussions between doctors and their patients? From a surveillance perspective this is a terrifying thought. Aside from the existential questions, Klein goes on to explain that the AI isn’t always accurate, it makes errors in word choice and even subs in different names for medicines. I guess more training in this environment could improve the AI, but what is the cost of that, both from a privacy perspective and the errors made in the training process?

This goes into the other thing I cannot stop thinking about, which is how AI is trained on large data sets. In The Atlas of AI Crawford gives a brief history about where IBM found training data sets in the 1970s for early AI – user manuals, children’s books, patents, and then ultimately an IBM lawsuit. She goes on to explain that the internet changed the scarcity problem with large data sets, suddenly there was plenty of freely available content in high quantities. Crawford describes the internet as a natural resource for AI (106). I now feel acutely aware of the ways my own data can be scraped from the internet and what it can be used for. The who, what, and why of this concerns me. I have come to accept that AI is inevitable. My wife consistently reminds me that it is here whether I like it or not. I think it can be used as a tool to make life easier, or I guess I think that’s what it should be used for. But, I do not trust the owners of these tech platforms and the way they can manipulate us using data they scrape from our online footprint. At this point it feels like the bad outweighs the good… is it possible for AI to exist only for “good” (and who decides what that means)? For it to only be a tool to make life easier (rather than the be all end all)?

Final Project Proposal: Decolonizing the Display

Confront the Canon: Examine Museum Collection and Exhibition Practices

Link to Slide Deck

Proposal Overview: In 2019, a statistics and art history team from Williams College and the University of California conducted a diversity study on eighteen U.S. museums and found that overall 85% artists in the collections are white and 87% are men. I envision the project as a way to explore the institutional bias reflected in the skewed diversity ratios prevalent in museum collections and reflected in their exhibition history that consistently privileges art created by white Western artists. The central question being explored is: How does the institution’s collection and curatorial practices contribute to the marginalization of non-Western art, women artists and artists of color? 

Project Objective and Inspiration: The objective is to confront the art canon (which constitutes the general standards set to judge ‘greatness’ in art) and examine the practices that determine whose history is represented in the institution’s collection and whose story is told in the displays. I propose a mediation in the spirit of Fred Wilson’s brilliant intervention in his Mining the Museum project, where the artist culled forgotten African-American artifacts from the Maryland Historical Society’s permanent collection and juxtaposed the objects in their conventional display issuing a powerful statement against institutional racism. The entrance to Mining the Museum featured the Truth Trophy, where three busts of white men from the collection who were not Marylanders was placed in front of three empty black pedestals that represented Black Marylanders missing from the collection, namely Harriet Tubman, Benjamin Bannekar and Frederick Douglass (Figure 1, right). Another introspective intervention was seen in the form of slave shackles placed in a metalwork display which adds the context of invisible slave labor hidden behind the glimmering objects (Figure 1, left). 

Exhibits from the project Mining the Museum by Fred Wilson
Figure 1: Metalwork on the left; Truth Trophy on the right from Fred Wilson’s Mining the Museum, 1992

Project Method and Execution Phases: My project aims to mount a comparable interrogation of museum practices that allows users to intervene in select past exhibitions, curate an equitable display highlighting absences and provide relevant context by studying the collection through a decolonizing lens. Roopika Risam proposed the postcolonial digital pedagogy approach as a means to understand the role of knowledge production in privileging Western voices and employing active engagement of the audience as creators and not just consumers to begin decolonizing the archives. In a similar approach, the Confront the Canon interface will enable users to curate their own equitable exhibitions and empower them to participate as creators in the decolonizing effort. 

Phases of proposed project
Figure 2: Phases of the proposed project, Confront the Canon

To execute the project within a semester, the scope is narrowed down to a single exhibition catalogue from the Metropolitan Museum of Art with the aim of creating the basic framework for the selection of interventions resulting in the final outcome of the virtual equitable exhibition. The project can eventually be scaled up.

The project execution is planned in four phases (Figure 2):

  • Phase 1: Select a past exhibition catalog, cull the selected catalog to create the past exhibition dataset.
  • Phase 2: Identify relevant search parameters such as art period, style, gender, race to create the basis of the intervention object dataset selection.
  • Phase 3: Provide display panels to swap out objects from the exhibition and accept intervention objects or suggestions where appropriate interventions are unavailable with relevant context labels.
  • Phase 4: Display newly curated equitable exhibition.

DH Context: The environment scan revealed several institutional attempts to address canon exclusions through digital exhibitions such as the ones seen on the NMWA, Palmer Museum of Art websites that feature online exhibits around Women in Art, Asian and Asian American Art, African art etc. However, these exhibitions focus on the themes in isolation, in a way ‘othering’ the subject. My project’s approach differs from these efforts because the attempt is to emphasize the exclusions and the flawed premise of the canon from within and visualize equity as an alternative.

Screenshots of online exhibition from Palmer Museum of Art to show effective use of google slide template.
Figure 3:Navigation of online exhibition Women in Art: Activism and Resistance, Palmer Museum of Art

Confront the Canon will seek guidance from the simple yet effective platform and design choices employed in the Palmer Museum exhibitions (Figure 3). Their design layouts are impressive because the humble google slides are used to great effect providing an immersive experience of the exhibition with simple navigation through the galleries and clickable art objects moving to text or video content that elaborate on the context.