It’s time for Part IV of the mini-introductions to the 2014 CAA THATCamp organizers. On this hot seat this time is Christine Sundt, Professor Emerita, Architecture and Allied Arts Library, Visual Resources Collection, University of Oregon, and Editor, Visual Resources: An International Journal of Documentation.
1. What is your current involvement with “digital art history”?
As editor of a scholarly journal (Visual Resources: An International Journal of Documentation – VR), I am surrounded by digital resources, many based or focused on art history or closely allied with it. Through my work with authors, I encounter ways that technology has affected, altered, or replaced analog methods and processes in our workflows. Today’s books and journals are still recognizable as they were a couple of centuries ago, but will that always be the case? In today’s scholarly universe, full-color images are central to all types of communication, which is very different from Pre-D (before digital) days when text reigned supreme on a printed page and we viewed art mostly in greyscale in the static book format. Technology has expanded modes of presentation, access, and communication, putting us in touch with resources, which by their very nature as precious art objects and documents had previously been locked away and off the radar for all but a few specialists. Digital art history promises to bring art to the masses in ways that we could only dream of a few decades ago. How this is happening and reshaping cultural boundaries is what I look for in guiding VR. In doing so, I am trying to enrich my understanding and appreciation of technologies that supply tools and systems upon which art history is being constructed.
2. What is one of the most pressing issues in the field of “digital art history” today?
So much is available to all through online resources that one struggles to grasp “the whole” or what constitutes a complete body of work. A sub-issue is that while much is available electronically, the whole is still much greater and inaccessible. Art history is a discipline that builds on the past. Early images of important art objects are as critical to scholars as the latest bit-rich digital renditions of these objects. Each image has value that is often overlooked or dismissed when a newer format or version replaces it as the better or truer image. But how are these value judgments made and who is qualified to make them? Early scholarship, while perhaps no longer current or accepted, has value and importance in exposing other factors about the times and circumstances that produced it. Objects change due to time, wear, circumstances, or misfortunes and images are records of the effects of time. When resources are selected for us by the creators of databases and digital repositories, the whole is compromised. Digital art historians need to assume greater responsibility in the creation and management of digital resources so that the art historical record can be preserved. All of these resources, old as well as new, are facets of “the whole.”
3. Where do you see innovations happening?
Innovations typically happen outside the humanities. Art history, a discipline within the always underfunded humanities, has been chasing the innovators rather than having the luxury to play and dream with new tools and resources. Digital art historians should venture beyond traditional boundaries and supposed barriers to learn how to put digital resources to better use, remembering, too, that digital is just another tool.
4. What’s the panel or issue you’d most like to see proposed for THATCamp CAA in Chicago?
Rethinking methods courses for students of art history. What should students know and when should they know it?
