AP9041: Guided Study in Ontologies, Data Mapping, and Knowledge Aggregation from Arts and Humanities to Interactive Media

Instructor: Associate Professor Andrea Nanetti | Designed for Hedren Sum, PhD Candidate at NTU-ADM

Course Summary

This course will provide students with the practical skills to design, implement, and interrogate relational databases and linked data. The key questions covered in this course include: How do we formally model the relationships between entities (e.g., events, people, locations) of the same or different types in one or multiple datasets? How do we organize the data so that meaningful questions can be asked against the data efficiently? How do we provide a data infrastructure for modeling and sharing the data among researchers and also the general public?This class will provide the critical skills necessary for students to develop effective methods for storing, modeling, and querying relevant datasets at the interface of different disciplines (e.g., Arts, Humanities, Cognitive Sciences, Computer Science, Complexity, etc.)

Weekly readings

Week 1: Representing the virtues, screws, affections, and human passions in paintings.

Presentation Slides

Week 2: Shifting traditional disciplines into the digital. History as a showcase

Presentation Slides

Week 3: Iconography as a method. From Vasari’s Ragionamenti (1588) to Henri van de Waal’s Iconclass (1946-1972)

  • Reading 1: Vasari, G., & Draper, J. L. (1977).Vasari’s decoration in the Palazzo Vecchio: The Ragionamenti. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International.
    Alternative version: DRAPER, J. L. (1973). Vasari’s Decoration In The Palazzo Vecchio: The “ragionamenti” Translated With An Introduction And Notes (Order No. 7405914). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (302745180).
  • Reading 2: Tinagli Baxter, P. (1988). Vasari’s’ Ragionamenti’: the text as a key to the decorations of Palazzo Vecchio (Doctoral dissertation, University of Edinburgh).
  • Reference (reading guided by the instructor): Vasari, G. (1588). Ragionamenti del Sig. Cavaliere Giorgio Vasari, pittore et architetto aretino: Sopra le inuentioni da lui dipinte in Firenze nel Palazzo di loro Altezze Serenissime ; con lo Illustriss. et Eccellentiss. Signor Don Francesco Medici allora Principe di Firenze ; insieme con la inuentione della pittura da lui cominciata nella cupola ; con 2 tavole, una delle cose più notabili, et l’altra delli huomini illustri, che sono ritratti e nominati in quest’opera. Firenze: Filippo Giunti.
  • Reading 3: familiarise with http://www.iconclass.org/help/outline
  • Reading 4: van Straten, R. (1986). Panofsky and ICONCLASS. Artibus et historiae: an art anthology, (13), 165-181.

Presentation Slides

Week 4: Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968)

  • Reading: Panofsky, E. (1939). Studies in iconology. New York: Oxford University Press.
    Chapter 1 can be downloaded here.

Presentation Slides

Week 5: Richard Krautheimer (1897-1994)

Presentation Slides

Week 6: Hieronymus Bosh, The Ship of Fools (and its tryptich)

  • Assignment: Iconographic reading of the painting according to the discussion made in Weeks 1-5)

Week 7-12: Paintings as Maps. Mapping and (re)visualising paintings

Week 13: Public presentation of the results