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New Project – MiCLUES

By ucacngo, on 10 March 2014

We recently started a project called MiCLUES to develop dynamic smartphone-based visitor guidance algorithms and software for the Royal College of Music Museum of Instruments.  The aim is to enable visitors to make better use of the combined physical and digital collections and to chart both curated and personalised paths through the museum.

The project is a collaboration between the RCM and UCL and is funded by Share Academy.  Share Academy is an Arts Council England funded programme that aims to develop and foster relationships between London specialist museums and academics at UCL and the University of the Arts London.  It has funded 15 projects to help establish best practice and produce guidance for the museum and Higher Education sectors. For more information visit the London Museums Group website: www.londonmuseumsgroup.org

Sounds Like DNA – a new web installation for generative music at UCL

By ucacngo, on 10 March 2014

As part of our ongoing research and teaching in computer music here at UCL, we’ve been working with a London theatre company, Penny Dreadful Productions.  They have a new show currently touring called How to Be Immortal which presents three true-life stories about love, death and DNA and explores these through music and drama.  It has been developed with input from UCL scientists.  To give an interactive element to accompany the show, we have collaboratively developed an exciting web installation entitled Sounds Like DNA, where you can generate your own music that interprets DNA codes connected with various characteristics set by sliders.  You can reach the installation here: bit.ly/DNAsound

 

Dawn of a new era as New gTLDs delegated

By Chris J Dillon, on 4 December 2013

img: Eva Perón amid jacaranda trees

Eva Perón amid jacaranda trees

I atttended the recent ICANN meeting in Buenos Aires. It was upbeat as the first New gTLDs (generic Top Level Domains), e.g. .游戏, .онлайн, .みんな and .today have been delegated.
The New gTLDs Program is widely regarded as a success and many are predicting that the new addresses will increasingly displace the old .com addresses.

Further information: ICANN
UCL A&H’s role in all this: UCL press release

At the airport on the way home, it turned out that my passport was somehow unsullied by an entry stamp and so I was lucky to be able to persuade Immigration I wasn’t an illegal in time for the flight.

Textal text analysis app now available!

By Sarah Davenport, on 19 July 2013

textal-outnow04-poster copy

We are really pleased to announce that Textal, our text analysis app created in collaboration with the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, is now available for download!

Textal is a free smartphone app for iOS that allows users to analyze documents, web pages and tweet streams, exploring the relationships between words in the text via an intuitive word cloud interface. The app generates visualizations and statics that can be shared without effort, which makes it a fun and useful tool for both research and play, bridging the gap between text analysis and mobile computing. We also see it as a public engagement activity for Digital Humanities.

You can read more at www.textal.org, and download Textal for free in the iTunes app store and we’re also on twitter, at @textal.

If you have an iPhone or and iPad, please try it out and send us your feedback.

UCL Museums Dashboard

By Sarah Davenport, on 18 April 2013

Centre for Digital Humanities (UCLDH), the Barlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) and UCL Museums and Public Engagement have launched a digital dashboard highlighting the UCL Museums and Collections.

Check it out at http://citydashboard.org/uclmuseums/

Part of the bigger CityDashboard project, this special version shows data from, or relevant to, UCL Museums and Collections. It is part of the NeISS project and was jointly funded by JISC and UCL Museums and Public Engagement.

Digging Digital Humanities – a visit to UCLDH

By Sarah Davenport, on 31 January 2013

Kim Martin, a member of the Digging DH team (University of Western Ontario), will be visiting UCLDH 11-20 February and would like to interview both staff and students on their thoughts about DH, the tools used for their research, the social network of DH and more.  If you would like to take part, please contact Kim at diggingdh@gmail.com.  Further details can be found on the Digging DH blog.

'Sustaining our Digital Future' – a JISC/Ithaka S+R report

By Sarah Davenport, on 31 January 2013

‘Sustaining our Digital Future’, a new report from JISC and Ithaka S+R aimed at helping digital projects to thrive was published yesterday, in which UCLDH is proud to feature highly.  You can read the report here: http://sca.jiscinvolve.org/wp/files/2013/01/Sustaining-our-digital-future-FINAL-31.pdf

UCLDH: Rethinking Text-Dictionary Interfaces by Toma Tasovac

By Julianne Nyhan, on 30 October 2012

UCLDH is pleased to announce the following lecture by Toma Tasovac on 29th November 2012 at 17:30.

Title: Rethinking Text-Dictionary Interfaces: Deformative Lexical Annotations in Digital Editions

Abstract: Despite claims about the radical nature of electronic textuality, on-screen texts in digital editions remain largely static. Most annotated digital editions of literary works follow the typographic and editorial conventions of the print medium: they reinforce a clear separation of text and paratext while ignoring the potential of more playful strategies, such as Jerome McGann’s deformative criticism. In this talk I explore a new kind of text-dictionary interface that embeds and animates lexical annotations directly inside the on-screen text. The result is a dynamic, deformative interface that destabilizes the text’s self-enclosed identity and becomes a platform for the user’s cognitive, aesthetic and performative interaction with the digital object.

About the speaker: Toma Tasovac is the Director of the Center for Digital Humanities (Belgrade, Serbia). Further information about his work is available:  http://humanistika.org • http://transpoetika.org

The talk will be followed by a reception at 6:30pm, in the Foster Court, Arts and Humanities Staff Common room, UCL.

Please register here in order to reserve a place: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/4703134201

Day of Archaeology 2012

By Anne Welsh, on 30 May 2012

Posted on behalf of Lorna Richardson.

Following on from the success of 2011, we are happy to announce that this year’s ‘Day of Archaeology’, the public archaeology mass blogging project, is scheduled for *June 29, 2012*. Last year’s event, supported by the Centre for Digital Humanities, the Portable Antiquities Scheme, the Archaeology Data Service and L-P Archaeology saw over 400 archaeologists sign up, and almost 450 separate blog posts were created, including lots of photos, video, audio and more. The Day of Archaeology project has been shortlisted top 3 for the British Archaeological Award for the Best Representation of Archaeology in the Media. The award will be presented on the 9th July at the British Museum.

You can read more about the first Day of Archaeology from 2011 on the website. The general hope for the project is that by raising awareness about the truly diverse nature of archaeology, we will also in turn emphasize the vital role that archaeology plays in preserving our past for everyone’s future.

If you would like to find out more, or sign up to write about/film/photograph your archaeological day on the 29th (or as near the day as possible), please email us at dayofarchaeology@gmail.com

Award for QRator and the Grant Museum

By Claire S Ross, on 17 May 2012

Last night a contingent from UCLDHCASA and Museums and Public Engagement, headed down to the 10th Anniversary Museums and Heritage Awards.

There were 11 awards in total UCL, were up for three: The move of the Grant Museum for Project on A Limited Budget, the Grant Museum’s QRator project for Innovations and Heritage Without Borders for The International Award.

We are proud to announce that we won the Museum and Heritage Award for Excellence, Innovations award for QRator: Visitor Participation Through Social Interpretation.

QRator is a collaborative project developed jointly by UCL Digital Humanities , Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis,  and UCL Museums, with funding from the UCL Public Engagement Unit , to develop new kinds of content, co-curated by the public, and museum staff, to enhance museum interpretation, public engagement and meaning making by establishing new connections to museum exhibit content.

There’s a long list of people who need thanking and who were instrumental in creation, development, implementation and the ongoing support of the QRator project.

From UCL Museums and Public Engagement: Mark Carnall who worked with me originally in trialling QR codes in the Grant Museum and who is the most forward thinking curator I have ever met. Jack Ashby who writes the content and designs the displays for QRator, and who has the patience of a saint.  Susannah Chan from UCL Museums and Public Engagement for inventing the mounts for the iPads. A big thank you to the UCL Public Engagement Unit for their funding and support of the project, Sally MacDonald Director of UCL Museums and Public Engagement who has been a huge driving force behind the project,  it is so refreshing to have Top Down support for digital innovation in the cultural sector.

From UCL CASA: Steve Gray who is an absolutely brilliant developer, and whose skills in usability and interface design are second to none. Andy Hudson Smith, and Ralph and Martin the original team behind Tales of Things from UCL Centre for Advance Spatial Analysis,

From UCLDH: Melissa Terras and Claire Warwick who have been the best support, PhD supervisors I could ever ask for.

Without all of them this project would literally be nothing.

Oh and, a big thank you to the Jar of Moles for being the most discussed specimen!