Location: Regenstein Library, 1st Floor Lobby
Dates: Monday, March 28th to Friday, June 3rd (Spring Quarter 2011)
Public Hours: M–Th. 8:30am–7pm ; Fri. 8:30am–5pm; Sat. 9am–1pm; Closed Sundays
Guided Tour & Opening Reception: Tuesday, March 29th at 4:30pm
Presented by Eric Huntington, Ph.D. Candidate Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations
PhilaPlace is an interactive Web site, created by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, that connects stories to places across time in Philadelphia’s neighborhoods. PhilaPlace weaves stories shared by ordinary people of all backgrounds with historical records to present an interpretive picture of the rich history, culture, and architecture of our neighborhoods, past and present. The PhilaPlace Web site uses a multimedia format – including text, pictures, audio and video clips, and podcasts – and allows visitors to map their own stories in place and time.
PhilaPlace creates a dynamic virtual view of a city, browse-able via maps, topics, and collection groupings. For example, clicking on the map view and then selecting “Verbal and Artistic Expression” from the left menu will bring up artistic sites throughout the city, plotted on a map. Click on each point of interest for more information including images.
Artfinder has partnered with over 400 museums worldwide to provide online access to hundreds of thousands of artworks. After creating a free account, Artfinder users can start building profiles in order to receive personalized recommendations. Users can “collect” favorite works and then share their virtual collections on Facebook or Twitter.
Right now Artfinder includes many Renaissance, Impressionism, and Baroque images. The selection continues to grow.
Via Deep Focus.
Speaking Image, a web tool for annotating images, is available in beta. From their website:
Speaking Image is a web application which allows users to upload high-resolution images, work on them adding information over specific areas of the image and interact with other users through standard social network tools.
Videos describing how to use Speaking Image are available on their help page. The annotated version of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica shows some possibilities for annotating works of art with Speaking Image.
As the end of the quarter approaches you will probably be presenting projects in class. Whether you’re using Powerpoint or Keynote, here are some best practices to keep in mind:
If you have any questions, please contact the VRC!
The Noun Project presents visual symbols from around the world in a well-designed, easy-to-use online dictionary. You can browse by category and download high-quality images for use under individually-assigned Creative Commons licenses. The Noun Project mission:
The Noun Project collects, organizes and adds to the highly recognizable symbols that form the world’s visual language, so we may share them in a fun and meaningful way.
Via Deep Focus.
The Oriental Institute Museum exhibition Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Middle East is on view through Sunday March 6th.
Exhibit curator Christopher Woods, Associate Professor at the Oriental Institute, said, “In the eyes of many, writing represents a defining quality of civilization. There are four instances and places in human history when writing was invented from scratch — in Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and Mesoamerica — without previous exposure to or knowledge of writing. It appears likely that all other writing systems evolved from the four systems we have in our exhibition.”
For museum hours, click here.
The Modern Art Iraq Archive (MAIA) was made public this week. MAIA started as the result of a long-term effort to document and preserve the modern artistic works from the Iraqi Museum of Modern Art in Baghdad, most of which were lost and damaged in the fires and looting during the aftermath of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. As the site shows, very little is known about many of the works, including their current whereabouts and their original location in the Museum. The lack of documents about modern Iraqi art prompted the growth of the project to include supporting text. The site makes the works of art available as an open access database in order to raise public awareness of the many lost works and to encourage interested individuals to participate in helping to document the museum’s original and/or lost holdings…
An exhibition of documents at Rome’s State Archives throws vivid light on his tumultuous life here at the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries.
…He had frequent brushes with the police, got into trouble for throwing a plate of cooked artichokes in the face of a waiter in a tavern, and made a hole in the ceiling of his rented studio, so that his huge paintings would fit inside. His landlady sued, so he and a friend pelted her window with stones.
To explore an interactive sample of the documents, see the recent article from BBC News.
The BBC provides digital tours of “five of the world’s most beautiful old maps,” including a Psalter Map from 1260 which shows the earth as a flat round disc and a satirical map from 1877 depicting Russia as an octopus (above). The same website also features maps of the digital world, including a map of blogging and a map of global data exchange.