From July 12-25, the Getty Research Institute sponsored Building a Digital Portfolio at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. Geared toward Art History graduate students with an interest in digital art history, the ten-day institute featured hands-on workshops intended to introduce Ph.D. students at all stages to the tools and critical issues that inform the practice and production of digital art history.
Gaby became interested in digital humanities after coming across various websites in the past year that combined research with digital tools in ways that promise to benefit pedagogy and scholarship. Though she is still formulating exactly how she can use the digital to inform her research questions, certain aspects of DH are especially enticing-- the multiple tools available that allow scholars to fairly easily share collections online, the openness among many DH advocates/participants to sharing content and data for research, the invitation to experiment while being critical in structuring visual platforms that will engage varieties of audiences. She feels very fortunate to have taken part in the workshop.
Mary is also a newcomer to digital art history after becoming involved in the Digital Humanities working group on campus. Her initial interest in digital art history emerged after realizing that digital tools could address some of the methodological challenges she encountered during dissertation research and that digital platforms can help her to engage a broader public audience with her research. After attending the workshop, Mary will utilize mapping tools in conjunction with her discussion of art created after the Watts Uprising in 1965. She also plans to introduce her students to digital tools, such as image annotation, digital collections, and online publishing platforms that will allow them to think about the study of art history in new ways.