Dear all,
In addition to a discussion of the KR curriculum we also left open
the possibilities of using this week to discuss digitization. You
will have noticed that there are number of readings posted for topic.
The reason there are so many readings is that I wanted to include
background readings suitable for students who may not have the
background in computing we have. Many of the readings are therefore
for anticipated students not for us. This note is to provide you with
a tour of the readings so that you can choose the readings of
interest to you.
I have treated the issue of digitization as an issue of knowledge
representation. The questions before us are:
On a computer all information is represented in binary digits. What
are the implications for knowledge represented in this form?
What are the constraints of binary digital information and what are
the possibilities?
What is gained and what is lost when digitizing?
What choices do typically have to make when digitizing materials?
What are some common mistakes? What are the best practices for
digitizing for digital humanities projects?
Does the medium of binary digital data have a message?
______________________
Dealing with this topic I found that there were two senses of
digitization that I wanted to bring to the fore. The first is the
pragmatic use of the word for digitizing media, primarily text,
images or time-based media like audio and video. The DH students
should be introduced to the practice of digitizing media and in
particular the issues around the digitization of images since text is
usually entered and other media can be understood as extensions of
digital imaging.
A. Digitizing Images
1. When digitizing images one needs to think of the outcomes - the
anticipated uses of the digital images for which reason one needs to
think about the screen as the primary output device on which digital
images are viewed. "Computer Monitors and Graphics Systems" is an
introduction to computer graphics and how screens work from a
computer graphics book.
walters.chp3.computers-monitors -
2. The tools and techniques used for digitizing media also need to be
understood. "Hardware that Enables Multimedia" from a multimedia
textbook is a survey of multimedia hardware including digital cameras
and audio capture systems. It covers more than we need, but is a good
overview if you ever wondered how a digital camera works.
tannenbaum.chp3.hardware-that-enables
3. Image digitization has a history. Mitchell's chapter "Electronic
Tools" is from "The Reconfigured Eye" which is an excellent
discussion of digital imaging and how it is changing our notions of
truth in images. The chapter digitized approaches the tools and
techniques from a historical perspective. Note how Mitchell comments
that digitizing images like digitizing audio is a matter of sampling
and quantizing.
mitchel.chp4.electronic-tools
4. Digitized images are in a history of images and machines. For a
theoretical discussion that is a classic in the field we can turn to
Walter Benjamin "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction". While this essay is about photography it raises many
of the issues we have about the materiality of digital images and
their art.
benjamin.pdf
5. Gombrich "From Light into Paint" is about painting, but discusses
how paintings represent and transmit information. Gombrich quotes
Churchill to the effect that paintings are transmitted in code which
we learn to decrypt. We have discussed how sophisticated books are as
knowledge machines, here is a perspective on painting that reminds us
how paintings might work in a way that connects to digital images.
gombrich.chp1.from-light-into-paint
B. Binary Digital Information
The issue of digitizing images brings up fundamental questions about
the constraints and possibilities for the digital representation of
any knowledge. In order to understand digital humanities we need to
remind ourselves of the nature of the digital. I have not been able
to find exactly what I wanted, but here are some readings around the
subject.
6. The history of binary math up to the computer is treated in
Ifrah's "Binary Arithmetic and Other Non-Decimal Systems" from _The
Universal History of the Computer_. Included in that selection are
also other parts of the book on Analogue Computation and Analogue
Calculators. (See the Poster selection below on the analogue and
digital.)
ifrah.chp4.binary-arithmetic
7. For a more gentle introduction to binary communications systems
see Petzold "Bit by Bit by Bit" from his book on _Code_. This
includes a discussion of bar codes if you have wondered how they work.
petzold.chp9.bit-by-bit-by-bit
8. Petzold's discussion will then help you make sense of Shannon and
Weaver's introduction to _The Mathematical Theory of Communication_
which deals with the quantification of information.
Shannon.Ch1.pdf
9. Finally I have included a short exerpt from Mark Poster's essay
"Print and Digital Authorship" on the difference between the analogue
and the digital.
poster.analogue-and-digital.pdf
_____________
If I were to read two of these I would look at the Mitchell and the Ifrah.
Yours,
Geoffrey Rockwell
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