Categories
Images on the Web

South Asian American Digital Archive Featured on Asia Pacific Forum

Samip Mallick, President of the Board of Directors of the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA) and Director of the Ranganathan Center for Digital Information was recently interviewed on WBAI New York’s Asia Pacific Forum. SAADA is a resource that is free and available to the public. Mallick discussed the archive’s efforts to document and preserve the history of South Asian Americans, the vision behind the archive, and some stories behind the collections. An MP3 of the interview is available.

 

 

 

Categories
Innovative Technology

Possible Uses for Google+ in the Classroom

A recent blog post from the Chronicle of Higher Education discusses the differences between social networking sites Facebook and Google+, and some of the potential uses for Google+ in the classroom:

Facebook does allow some selective sharing, but doing so is difficult to comprehend. As a result, many professors have decided to reserve Facebook for personal communications rather than use it for teaching and research… In Google Plus, users can assign each new contact to a “circle” and can create as many circles as they like. Each time they post an update, they can easily select which circles get to see it.

See also an article from journalism professor Jeremy Littau on “Why Lehigh (and every other) University needs to be on Gplus. Now.” His explanation includes a plan to hold virtual office hours using the Google+ Hangout feature.

 

 

Categories
Images on the Web Renaissance - Baroque

Microscopic Study of the Ghent Altarpiece

A new website allows microscopic study of Jan van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece:

In 2010, Van Eyck’s renowned Ghent Altarpiece was subjected to an urgent conservation treatment within the Villa Chapel in St. Bavo Cathedral in Ghent. To allow this work, the altarpiece was temporarily dismantled, which in turn made it possible to undertake a technical documentation campaign, funded by the Getty Foundation. This project generated a wealth of high-definition digital images that will be integrally placed on the internet, which will allow anyone to study these paintings in microscopic magnification, and to peek under the paint surfaces by means of Infrared reflectograms (IRRs) and X-radiographs.

The first part of this project is available now, in full resolution. Users are able to study the underdrawings of any two panels side by side.

Via Historians of Netherlandish Art.

Note: In order to see images of the Ghent Altarpiece linked above in LUNA, you must be a member of the UChicago community.

Categories
Innovative Technology

Science and Art in 3-D

A recent profile in the New York Times showcases two artists, working inside and outside academia, who both believe that “better visualization leads to better thinking.” Sculptor Nathalie Miebach “translates weather data and other scientific measurements into three-dimensional objects that accurately display temperature variations, barometric pressure and moon phases, among other things.” Matthew McCrory uses 3-D display to help scientists at Northwestern University visualize their data:

“Undergrads in front of a big 3-D display? They’re going to be pulled in.” But that’s just the beginning. “We are translating computational theoretical data that could not be seen in any other way,” he continued. “Astronomy, chemistry, biology — there isn’t any place we can’t touch.”

 

Categories
Tech Support

Tips for Keeping Gmail Organized

Do you use Gmail? Need some help keeping it organized? Check out Google’s guide to becoming a “Gmail Ninja,” whether you’re a White Belt (novice user) or Gmail Expert. You’ll find out how to use labels, filters, tasks, and other features in order to organize your messages and find them easily.

Categories
Modern - Contemporary

Photos and Videos from Collaboration & the Artist’s Book

This symposium aims above all to point out the key role of literary/artistic interactions – and of their most direct material expression, the “artist’s book” – in the metamorphoses of 20th- and 21st-century literature and art.

Photos and videos from the symposium Collaboration & the Artist’s Book, held in Caen and Paris last Spring, are now available online.

Via Charles Bernstein.

Categories
Innovative Technology Photography

Shoot Now, Focus Later: The New Lytro Camera

Start-up company Lytro is causing a buzz with their so-called light field camera, the first to allow users to shoot first and focus later.

While viewing a picture taken with a Lytro camera on a computer screen, you can, for example, click to bring people in the foreground into sharp relief, or switch the focus to the mountains behind them.

The camera will be released to the consumer market later this year. Via The New York Times.

Categories
Images on the Web Museums

Explore Britain’s Paintings Online

Your Paintings is a website which aims to show the entire UK national collection of oil paintings, the stories behind the paintings, and where to see them for real. It is made up of paintings from thousands of museums and other public institutions around the country.

Your Paintings is a joint initiative between the BBC, the Public Catalogue Foundation (a registered charity) and participating collections and museums from across the UK.

Over 60,000 of the 200,000 publicly-owned paintings are currently online. Critics, scholars, and artists also provide virtual guided tours, including Yinka Shonibare who discusses the art that inspires him.

 

Categories
VRC

19 Web Applications to Promote Concentration

Having a hard time focusing while you work, what with all of those tempting distractions like Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook? Or is your problem instead that you forget to take mental and physical breaks from your work? Either way, there are various web applications available to help you be your most productive. Check out Gigaom’s “19 Apps to Boost Concentration” for more information.

Categories
Architecture Moving Images

SCI-Arc to Create Comprehensive Digital Lecture Archive

The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) has received two major grants from the NEA and Getty Foundation that will be used to create the SCI-Arc Digital Lecture Archive.

This free web archive will contain more than 1,000 hours of key architectural and design lectures and symposia from 1974 to the present that will be accessible online, via phone applications, e-readers, and other new media channels… The SCI-Arc Digital Lecture Archive will provide access to never before seen footage of some of the most influential leaders in architecture and design, including Frank O. Gehry, Zaha Hadid, David Hockney, Rem Koolhaas, John Lautner, Thom Mayne, Eric Owen Moss, Kazuyo Sejima, and many more… Scheduled to be launched in 2012—coinciding with SCI-Arc’s 40th anniversary—the SCI-Arc Digital Lecture Archive will feature a sophisticated search engine that will allow access to both entire lectures as well as specific segments of each lecture, placing the school’s significant archive at one’s fingertips.

Via Archinet.