Digital Humanities at a Global Scale: The Example of the Human Figure

This lecture will take place in person at ISAW.

Registration is required at THIS LINK.

Global Approaches to Early Representations of the Human Figure (GAERHF) is a new digital project in the early stages of development. It can be described concisely as a tool to allow exploration of the long-term history of the production of images of ourselves, a history that begins some 50,000 years ago at least. In its current form, GAERHF collects examples running from that start through the middle of the 15th century CE, meaning it stops well before the transformations wrought by the relatively high-speed travel and communication of the modern period. As a digital project, GAERHF is an experiment in taking on a topic that is large in respect to time and unreservedly global in respect to space. How can representations collected at such scales be presented within a tractable website that allows users to define variable spatial and chronological scopes that encourage discovery? As an Art History project, GAERHF allows multiple narratives to co-exist within a global approach to visual culture. Every representation of the human figure in GAERHF inherently has a temporal and spatial context that permits connectivity to be explored. But GAERHF does not mean to privilege only that approach. Hyperlocal developments are just as present. By demonstrating the current state of the project, the talk will indicate – and also ask – how GAERHF can contribute to art historical and other discourses. GAERHF is available at https://gaerhf.org, where entries are being added and functionality is developing. 

Sebastian Heath is Clinical Associate Professor of Computational Humanities and Roman Archaeology at ISAW. He has an A.B. from Brown University in Medieval Studies and received his Ph.D. in Classical Art and Archaeology from the University of Michigan. His research interests include Roman pottery, Roman architecture with a focus on amphitheaters, and digital methods as applied to the Ancient Mediterranean and beyond. He is co-editor of ISAW Papers and co-director of the Pompeii Linked Open Data project (P-LOD) and the associated Pompeii Artistic Landscape Project. 

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