Workshop Basic Info

Workshop Title:

Visual Cultures, Digital Humanities and Online Art Education

Date:

October 21, 2024

Organizer:

Sam Houston State University

Background:

Digital cultures have been booming in many universities. Traditional disciplines which were once firmly entrenched in printed materials have recently widened their perspective. Now the printed page competes with digitally encoded practices with a visual orientation. Visual culture has been posited as a symptom of, and a response to the image-based contemporary cultural landscape. Recently, W. J. T. Mitchell discerned a clear transition from the linguistic to the pictorial (or visual) turn. The Online Picasso Project originated from an emphasis on digitally encoded visual cultures, moving away from an understanding of art criticism as predominantly text-based. It consists of a complex system of interrelated databases which include both texts and images pertaining to Pablo Picasso. As a result of close collaboration between art scholars and computer engineers, the Picasso Project has adopted an innovative architecture with three major objectives: (1) to facilitate the maintenance of a large collection of artworks along with its associated historical narratives, (2) to overcome the limitations of printed art catalogues, enabling users to create and visualize a dynamic art catalog, by combining and linking the different components in the collection, and (3) to provide new ways for composing, browsing, and exploring a collection of artworks, creating multiple transformations from traditional chronologically-based narrative, allowing users to browse through artworks in ways not possible with printed versions.

Goal/Rationale:

Governments worldwide are promoting digital visual cultures, recognizing their potential to transform education and cultural preservation. This workshop will explore the benefits and challenges of teaching visual cultures online, using the Picasso Project as a model. The project demonstrates the complexity of digital databases, linking artworks with historical events, critical essays, and the artist’s life timeline. References include places Picasso lived or worked, his contacts, and related documents. Key details about artworks such as provenance, exhibitions, and references are meticulously cataloged. By 2024, the Online Picasso Project had over 40,000 entries, showing how computer-based techniques enhance learning in the visual arts through innovative research methods. Additionally, we will discuss the sociological and cultural impacts of such digital projects, examining how digital archives influence cultural memory, identity formation, and knowledge democratization. This workshop aims to provide insights into the role of digital tools in art history, sociology, and cultural studies.

Scope and Information for Participants:

This workshop is aimed at any student, researchers, and individuals interested in the intersection of digital humanities, art history, sociology, and cultural studies, although we will focus on students in their last academic years and will discuss the latest advancements and challenges in these fields. The aim is to explore the benefits and problems faced by digital humanities in art history, the expansion of visual cultures through digital tools, and the integration of critical thinking in these areas. We will also address how digital humanities intersect with sociological and cultural perspectives, examining specific projects such as the challenges of the Online Picasso Project. Participants will engage in discussions to exchange experiences and ideas, and to share achievements. It is also expected to offer solutions, recommendations, and strategies to mitigate potential challenges and enhance scholarly practices. Several keywords are listed to share the potential themes with interested participants, while the topics are not limited to the provided keywords.

Keywords:

• visual cultures
• digital humanities
• online art education
• urban sociology
• sociology of knowledge

Topics

Submission

All submitted papers should report original and unpublished work, experimental or theoretical, and are not under consideration for publications elsewhere. All papers should be no less than 4 pages in length and must strictly follow the format of the workshop template. All papers are subject to reviews and edits. Prospective authors are kindly invited to submit full text papers that includes title, abstract, introduction, tables/figures and references. Other styles of papers are not accepted. Please submit your papers in both .doc/.docx AND .pdf formats as attachments via email to ws_huntsville@icgpsh.org by the given deadline. It is unnecessary to submit an abstract in advance.

Publication

Accepted papers of the workshop will be published in Lecture Notes in Education Psychology and Public Media (Print ISSN 2753-7048), and will be submitted to Conference Proceedings Citation Index (CPCI), Crossref, CNKI, Portico, Google Scholar and other databases for indexing. The situation may be affected by factors among databases like processing time, workflow, policy, etc.

Highlights:

Throughout the world, universities are promoting digital visual cultures. In this seminar, we discuss the work of Pablo Picasso using the Online Picasso Project as a tool. In addition to his overwhelmingly prolific output, Picasso is known for adopting a multitude of styles. From the early postimpressionist phase, through the Blue and Rose periods, and then into Cubism and Surrealism, his many phases continue to amaze the public. Picasso’s art is also extremely personal. One cannot understand his work without taking into consideration his culture and the people and events that surrounded him. It is for that reason that the Picasso Project collection of images is directly linked to the artist’s biography. Within the narrative of his life, there are constant references to places where the he lived and worked at any given moment. Additionally, links to people with whom the artist was in contact with at that time are also provided. Using the Picasso Project, this workshop discussed the Spaniard’s output not only in relation to his culture, but also to the work of other artists he knew, Picasso is known for his ability to absorb multiple styles and transform his observations into innovative creations. Workshop participants discussed selected works and explained the interconnections between several media and different artists, pointing out the differences and accounting for many of them on the basis of Picasso’s Spanish background.

Access to Workshop:ICGPSH 2024 Workshop – Huntsville – YouTube

Ways to Participate

To break the barriers of time and space and to provide seamless communication opportunities for worldwide scholars, both online and offline participation methods are supported for the workshop. Participants are encouraged to bring their own insights, experiences, and examples to share with the group through either presenting a poster online or attending in person.

Poster Session

The poster session will provide an opportunity for researchers to present their work in a visual and interactive way, allowing for more engagement and discussion with other attendees. Authors of qualified papers will be invited to present their works with digital posters. We believe that this online poster session will still be a great platform for participants to share, discuss, and cooperate.

All accepted authors will receive an invitation email to present at the official workshop website. Please note that all poster presenters must submit the poster before October 18, 2024. Detailed information on your presentation date and time will be confirmed closer to the meeting. If you have any questions, please email ws_huntsville@icgpsh.org.

Poster Presentation Guidelines

1. Poster presentations must be prepared using the template provided:
   *Poster layout template for poster presentation (download)
   *Poster layout background (download)
2. Posters should generally be in A1 size (width: 594mm x height: 841mm) and include the followings:

   Title, author and co-author names, and the affiliation(s) information.

   Body parts, including "Abstract", "Introduction", "Methods", "Results", "Discussion" and "Conclusions".

3. Presenters are suggested to set the font size properly and avoid placing anything at the margin part of the poster as it will be difficult to view.
4. Posters should be well illustrated. All the pictures used should be high quality and with high resolution.
5. All the posters will be displayed online on the official website. Each poster will have both a small thumbnail and a full-size version.
6. Posters will be displayed during the online session. After the presentation is over, the full-size version of all posters will become invisible. But thumbnails still can be seen on the website.

(You can refer to the instructions for more detailed information. Additional presentation guidelines may be announced by workshop committees.)

Attendance Onsite

The workshop welcomes participants to attend on-site and share the innovative experiences and researches with the group. Therefore, we provide some general information about the visa application. If you want to attend the workshop on-site, please email the workshop committee: ws_huntsville@icgpsh.org.

VISA:

In order to ensure the information is correct and up to date, there may be changes which we are not aware of. And different countries have different rules for the visa application. It is always a good idea to check the latest regulations in your country. This page just gives some general information of the visa application.

US Visa Information

Publication Info