My initial expectations for the internship were non-existent because I didn’t want to create a pre-conception of the journey I was about to go on. The internship entails digitizing the Texas Fashion Collection. At the time which the internship was assigned I was also searching for my thesis research topic. I had thought the internship was going to be great first hand experience to how institutions digitize collections, which was my initial thesis research topic, and believed it was going to be a great influence on what my thesis project would be, I was right but not in the way I expected.
As the internship evolved, I didn’t know what my role in the team was. My background is in graphic design and digital printing, not history. At the beginning at the internship I was paying attention to the cameras used, editing program, amount of shots for each article, how the files were being titled, the quality of the digital files, the meta-data for each photograph and even way they are stored on the hard drive, but I was not thinking of things historically, I was thinking of them as a digital(graphic) designer. An example of the difference in thinking as a “designer” today vs. a historian is in how my relationship changed when viewing the fashion collection.
Prior to the internship, and even the first few weeks I was focusing on the technology used to interact with the fashion collection, not the actual collection. My objects of focus were the technologies used to digitize the collection, but now I view the collection as individual evidence of technology. As historical artifacts, and in this case, I am fortunate that these artifacts are objects I can touch and physically hold. The experience of touching, seeing and even smelling the artifacts have helped re-direct me to my role in the team. I guess I expected to go into this internship taking my traditional role as the designer, but it has helped me to gently nudge me to another side of handling objects.
When I digitize things as a designer, my object of focus is the digital copy/replica I am making of the historical object, not the historical object. I ask myself, is this an accurate portrayal of the physical object? If not, then as a designer, I will edit the digital copy as much to resemble the physical object. As the historian, my object of focus is the historical object. I study that object, and its cultural context, it would be my responsibility to detail to the designer the historical accuracy/context of the object so that rather the designer edits the image to be a historically accurate depiction of the original object. An example of a scenario might be metadata assigned to an object photographed.
Meta-data serves various roles for different people using it. For digital designer the today, it is a simple way to be able to find and retrieve digital files, it is a form of adding categories to describe the digital copy. For the historian, the meta-data can be categories of sorting and grouping historical objects digitally, meta-data today I believe assigns a digital cultural context to the object which might have not been a reality for the physical object. I will continue to explore that relationship throughout my internship.
It's really interesting that we both had similar experiences even though our fields are very different. When I began to work on my application to help blind people have access to museums, I also focused on my application, the technology, and my expertise, how to provide access to museums, without really thinking about my actual customers, the blind. However, after meeting them and learning from them, I had the same realization that you have had after interacting with the materials, the clothing. I learned so much more about what I needed to do to reach my goals after meeting with the people that my application would serve. You also learned more after getting involved with the artifacts that your digital replica endeavored to recreate. Even though we both have different focuses, our experiences have been similar in that regard. I'm glad to know that my experiences are shared among my colleagues as we embark on this journey together.
ReplyDeleteThanks Liz and welcome to the blog! It is interesting to read of the different worlds you have/continue to inhabit as a designer and as an art historian. Do you think that these two identities will ever co-exist? Or, do they appear separately? Do you have any mentors that are both designers AND art historians?
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