Vwire: Digital Content Management through Spatial Arrangement - a Tool for Visual Argumentation in the Humanities
FAIN: HD-51400-11
University Of Houston (Houston, TX 77204-3067)
Daniel Price (Project Director: March 2011 to April 2014)
The development of a virtual research tool, using Teotihuacan stone masks as exemplars, to allow scholars to order, share, and discuss interpretations of digital images datasets based on their visual characteristics.
The Vwire project initiates an open source and extensible environment for producing, sharing and discussing visually ordered data sets in the humanities. Even those existing database tools that allow researchers to see multiple images simultaneously do not allow for the active and intuitive configuration of the images - like arranging snapshots on a table - that Vwire provides. Already implemented as an add-on module for Plone 4 (a mature and recently much improved Content Management System [CMS]), Vwire leverages existing technology and extends the visualization tools available to humanities researchers. We propose a test case using a small group of Teotihuacan stone masks, which are of archaeological and art historical importance, and we will elicit collaboration between experts from both fields to help refine and troubleshoot the existing tool.
Associated Products
Vwire (Visual Web Interface for Researchers) (Computer Program)Title: Vwire (Visual Web Interface for Researchers)
Author: Daniel Price
Abstract: Program written as add on for Plone. Allowed users to upload any sort of media and then place the object on the screen in multiple dimensions. Python libraries were used behind the scene to compare how objects were placed in different conceptual dimensions by different researchers, and ethnographic techniques were used to capture and compare different use cases.
Year: 2013
Access Model: Open source, but no longer maintained
Programming Language/Platform: Javascript / Python
Source Available?: No
Vwire (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Vwire
Author: Daniel Price
Abstract: Use of the Visual Web Interface for Researchers as a use case in the Digital Humanities. How multidimensional conceptual analyses can be used for a wide range of humanities and social science work, and how it expands on ideas of human subjectivity and the creation of meaning.
Date: 1/27/2012
Conference Name: The Digital Humanities: A Revolution in Research and Funding - University of Houston
Visualizing Emergent Forms: The Philosophical Dimensions of Anthropology and the Mathematics of those Dimensions (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Visualizing Emergent Forms: The Philosophical Dimensions of Anthropology and the Mathematics of those Dimensions
Author: Daniel Price
Abstract: The use of Vwire (Visual Web Interface for Researchers) to understand emerging forms of meaning production in visual ethnographic research is explored in both mathematical and philosophical terms.
Date: 11/20/2011
Conference Name: American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings, Montreal, Canada.
Visualizing Emergent Forms: The Philosophical Dimensions of Anthropology and the Mathematics of those Dimensions (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Visualizing Emergent Forms: The Philosophical Dimensions of Anthropology and the Mathematics of those Dimensions
Author: Daniel Price
Abstract: The use of Vwire (Visual Web Interface for Researchers) to understand emerging forms of meaning production in visual ethnographic research is explored in both mathematical and philosophical terms.
Date: 11/20/2011
Conference Name: American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings, Montreal, Canada.
Vwire: Digital Content Management through Spatial Arrangement: A Tool for Visual Argumentation in the Social Sciences and Humanities (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Vwire: Digital Content Management through Spatial Arrangement: A Tool for Visual Argumentation in the Social Sciences and Humanities
Author: Jerome Crowder
Author: Daniel Price
Abstract: The use of Vwire (Visual Web Interface for Researchers) was explained as a visual tool was explained, with emphasis on inclusion in existing Visual Ethnographic toolkits.
Date: 11/16/2011
Conference Name: 27th Annual Visual Research Conference, Montreal, Canada
Vwire: Digital Content Management Through Spatial Arrangement (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Vwire: Digital Content Management Through Spatial Arrangement
Author: Rex Koontz
Author: Daniel Price
Abstract: Vwire (Visual Web Interface for Researchers) was explored as a tool for archaeology. The arrangements of masks from Teotihuacan was used to show how similarities in form could be arranged in multidimensional spaces and mathematical models of their significance could be created.
Date: 4/19/2011
Conference Name: Visualization in Archaeology International Conference, Southampton University, UK
Curating Digital Spaces, Making Visual Arguments: A Case Study in New Media Presentations of Ancient Objects (Article)Title: Curating Digital Spaces, Making Visual Arguments: A Case Study in New Media Presentations of Ancient Objects
Author: Rex Koontz
Author: Daniel Price
Author: Lauren Lovings
Abstract: Curating is often seen as a mediation between artist, work, and audience, with the curator firmly at the center. The central role of the curator has been further emphasized with the rise of the curator as artist and the institutional and physical limitations of museum spaces. We argue that there are important alternative spaces of meaning to be developed between object and audience. Digital curating, in particular, allows for greater audience participation, both by expanding the potential audience and by allowing visitors to navigate through the virtual galleries under their own direction. We contend that by facilitating the site visitors’ creation of their own visual arguments, a new level of audience participation in visual analysis — indeed, in a fundamental intellectual and intuitive aspect of curating — is made possible. We explore how digital resources can be modified to allow for that contextual sense of making a visual argument through arrangement. An installation at the University of Houston debuted a new tool for digital content management and allows us to make some preliminary observations about the process of visual analysis, its role in curatorial practice, and explore future directions for work.
Year: 2013
Primary URL:
http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/7/2/index.htmlAccess Model: open access
Format: Journal
Publisher: Digital Humanities Quarterly