Digital Humanities for Academic and Curatorial Practice

Abstract

The Digital Humanities have challenged all disciplines of Art History to engage with new interdisciplinary methodologies, learn new tools, and reevaluate their role within academia. In consequence, art historians occupy a new position in relation to the object of study. Museums have been equally transformed. The possibilities of creating virtual realities for lost/inaccessible monuments poses a new relationship between viewer and object in gallery spaces. Digital Humanities interventions in museums even allow us to preserve the memory of endangered global heritage sites that cease to exist or are inaccessible (celebrated examples including the lost Great Arch of Palmyra reconstructed with a 3D printer). Curatorial practices are now trending towards a sensorial and experiential approach. Is the role of Digital Humanities, in academic as well in museum settings, to “reveal” the object itself, through an empirical display of existing material, or to “reconstruct” something of the original experience of the object to engage spectators? Can we propose a reconciliation between these two “poles”? The Sixth International Day of Doctoral Studies promoted by RAHN aims to investigate the role of Digital Humanities by fostering a dialogue between the protection of cultural heritage sites, museology, the history of art, and the digitalization of Big Data.