The many (inter)faces of Arts, Humanities and Technology: The

UK’s Arts and Humanities e-Science Programme

Stuart Dunn

Centre for e-Research, King’s College London

Acume2 General Meeting

Rimini, 16th May 2008

1. What is e-Science?

• "e-Science is about global collaboration in key areas of science and the next generation of

infrastructure that will enable it." - Sir John Taylor, Former Director General of Research Councils, 2000

• “the development and deployment of a networked infrastructure and culture through which resources – (…) – can be shared in a secure environment, and in which new forms of collaboration can emerge, and new and advanced methodologies explored.” (http://www.ahessc.ac.uk/scoping-survey)

- Sheila Anderson, Director, Centre for e-Research, King’s College London, 2007

“[n]ot only [to] provide unprecedented access to a variety of cultural artifacts but also [to] make it possible to see these artifacts in completely new ways … digital technology [that] can offer us new ways of seeing art, new ways of bearing witness to history, new ways of hearing and remembering human languages, new ways of reading texts, ancient and modern.’

- ‘Our Cultural Commonwealth, ACLS, 2006

1. What is e-Science?

Using networks to connect resources

• Grids to allow virtual computing across “admin domains”– Virtual digital libraries,

virtual museums, virtual observatories

• Technology that was first adopted in sciences…

People

Data

Computation

Building bridges

People

Data

Computation

Arts and Humanities e-Science in the UK

2005: AHRC-JISC e-Science Initiative begins

2006: - AHeSSC begins, hosted by Arts and Humanities Data Service

- EPSRC joins initiative

- 3 small scale demonstrator projects funded by EPSRC

- 6 research workshops funded by AHRC

2007: 7 research projects and 4 PhD studentships announced

- AHDS funding discontinued, KCL’s Centre for e-Research formed

Arts and Humanities e-Science in the UK - 2006

Workshop projects (AHRC)

• User Requirements Gathering for the Humanities (Professor Alan Bowman, University of Oxford) • Geographical Information System e-Science: developing a roadmap (Dr Paul Ell, Queen’s University Belfast) • Performativity/Place/Space: Locating Grid Technologies (Dr Angela Piccini, University of Bristol )• The Access Grid in Collaborative Arts and Humanities Research (Professor David Shepherd, University of Sheffield) • Building the Wireframe: E-Science for the Arts Infrastructure (Dr Gregory Sporton, University of Central England)• ReACH: Researching e-Science Analysis of Census Holdings (Dr Melissa Terras, University College London)

Demonstrator Projects (EPSRC)

• Virtual Vellum: Online Viewing Environment for the Grid and Live Audiences (Professor PF Ainsworth, University of Sheffield)• A Virtual Workspace for the Study of Ancient Documents (Dr CV Crowther, University of Oxford) • Motion Capture Data Services for Multiple User Categories (Dr SJ Norman, University of Newcastle)

http://www.ahessc.ac.uk/projects

Arts and Humanities e-Science in the UK - 2007

•Helen Bailey: Relocating Choreographic Process: The impact of Grid technologies and collaborative memory on the documentation of practice-led research in dance

•Alan Bowman: Image, Text, Interpretation: e-Science, Technology and Documents

•Tim Crawford: Purcell Plus: Exploring an eScience Methodology for Musicologists

•Vincent Gaffney: Medieval Warfare on the Grid: The Case of Manzikert

•Sally MacDonald, E-Curator: 3D colour scans for remote object identification and assessment

•Julian Richards, Archaeotools: Data mining, facetted classification and E-archaeology

•monica schraefel, musicSpace: Using and Evaluating e-Science Design Methods and Technologies to Improve Access to Heterogeneous Music Resources for Musicology

http://www.ahessc.ac.uk/research-projects

Virtual Workspace for the Study of Ancient Documents (Oxford)

Collaborative real-time performance (University of Central England)

An example view from a colour 3D data set, image courtesy of Arius 3D and the Royal Ontario Museum, Canada.

‘e-Curator’ (UCL)

Research in music and e-science methods (Goldsmiths, Southampton)

Virtual Research Environment for Archaeology (Reading, York Archaeological Trust, UCL)

Virtual Research Environment for Archaeology

Mapping Doggerland (Birmingham)

- Questioning assumptions inherent in ‘traditional research’

Why?!

- Enabling A&H scholars to ask new research questions

- Driving technological research agendas with those questions

- Linking A&H with technology enables new kinds of collaboration within and across disciplines

- The digital sphere gives us new ways of linking data

- Web 2.0….?

- Making possible new international collaborations

stuart.dunn@kcl.ac.uk