Being (Digital) Humans

This is strange. I’ve been to many lectures recently but a mild panic about actually having to learn stuff for my skipper exams ensured all my notes have been neglected. The most recent one I attended was part of the Being Human Festival which, as the blurb says, 

Being Human is the UK’s only national festival of the humanities. From philosophy in pubs, history in coffeehouses, classics on social media and language lessons on street corners – the festival provides new ways to experience how the humanities can inspire and enrich our everyday lives. Being Human demonstrates the strength and diversity of the humanities, and how they can help us to understand ourselves, our relationships with others, and the challenges we face in a changing world.

Being (Digital) Humans and how we experience culture - content and knowledge in the humanities - struck a chord. Like it or not, the connection between the digital and human worlds are increasingly making us into digitally driven humans. The work I've been involved with professionally and academically came together in this evening, and the more the speakers went on, the more I found myself wishing I was involved more directly. There were four varied speakers, Professor Patrik Svensson, Professor Todd Presner, Professor Sally-Jane Norman and Professor Lorna Hughes demonstrated the infinite possibilities when you combine the human and the digital.

Kemp on Leonardo: 'Space Time and Form'

Almost exactly a year ago I was at a University of London lecture listening to John Onians and in my blog I touched on the nature of connections with a brief mention of the Royal Institution and James Burke. It so happens that the first time I heard Professor Martin Kemp speak was at that same venerable institution in early Nov 2011 and so it continues; from one great art historian to another, connected over subject, time and space, the threads that hold my interests together just keep tightening.

Professor Kemp was presenting the 2013 Murray Memorial lecture at Birkbeck College. He was an appropriate person to deliver this lecture because he was taught by Peter Murray at the Courtauld Institute in the 60s. The Murray Bequest is an important part of the History of Art department which provides student financial support, acquisition of books for the library and public engagement with free lectures like this one.

Work in Progress: Digitisation Projects in Museums

This is part of a wider project that I am currently working on. I am about to start on the actual evaluation of what the National Museum of the Renaissance, has achieved with its partners regarding Leonhard Danner's goldsmith's bench. However the digital art history aspect has been fascinating to read about.