VeDPH

Digital and public art history

Visual arts and various other arts sectors experienced a kind of technological development and public exposure over the last decades that carry profound cultural implications. Art historical representation, artistic production and the art system in general thus need to be studied in order to understand how new technology affected research perspectives and public reception. Issues such as technological change, digital nativity, virtual realms, big data analysis, archiving systems for art historical knowledge  need to be put in the context of past and recent artistic productions, art institutions and public sprawl. Specific sectors of the area:

  • Digital Tools, Methods and Resources for Art History
  • Public Art, Art Writing and Audience Engagement
  • Digitization Projects for Art Archives, Museums, Collections and Artist Estates
  • Management and Public Policies for Digital Reproduction of Artworks and Archive Data

Fellowship projects

The Illustrated Book in Lyon 1480-1600

Carried out by Barbara Tramelli in cooperation with the University of Oxford.

The art historian Barbara Tramelli is developing new methodologies for the study of printed illustrations in digital collections, in order to shed light on the processes of knowledge making and sharing during the Renaissance period. 

Visiting scholars' projects

Reappropriation in the Remix Culture: The role of User Generated Contents (UGC) in Media Arts

Carried out by Carolina Fernández Castrillo

She is currently exploring the transformative processes of preexisting materials and the different modes of participatory involvement in Media Art practices. She is developing a Media Archaeological Methodology to understand the evolution of collage and interactive processes of creation to the emerging experiences based on online intercreative approaches. The outcome of the project will be a series of seminars and publications. She investigates the topic of Intermedialities in the Digital Avant-garde too.

Member / Department of Humanities projects

Digitization of an Art Collection and its Letters: The Correspondence and Collection of the Mario Rimoldi Modern and Contemporary Art Museum

Principal investigator: Diego Mantoan, Stefania Portinari
website: musei.regole.it/Rimoldi/index.php [ITA]
Status: ongoing

The project aims at digitizing the notable art collection and vast correspondence of Mario Rimoldi, who was one of Italy’s principle art collectors in the 20th century. The Museum that harbours his collection and correspondence with some of italy’s most celebrated artists (De Chirico, De Pisis, Depero, Guttuso etc.) is engaging with the VeDPH on a project to digitize both the collection and the letters, such as to create an online and open access platform, which provides insight in the life and deeds of mario Rimoldi. The international paradigm that will be followed is the decade long work done for the digitization and public accessibility of the Van Gogh letters.

The Digital Galleria Borghese: reshaping the access to the online collection and to the virtual museum space 

Principal investigator: Stefania De Vincentis, Daniele Fusi
website: https://galleriaborghese.beniculturali.it/
Status: ongoing

The cooperation with the Galleria Borghese, one of the most internationally renowned museums of Baroque art, and the VeDPH aims to develop a new model to access the online collection of the museum.  The artworks databases will be organized in a semantic platform using an interoperable protocol and IIIF standard for image visualization. The purpose is to open up a new conversation between museums' collections and a stratified audience.