Happy Birthday, Dorothea Lange! Farm Security Administration photographer Dorothea Lange was born on May 26, 1895. Because she worked for the government, some of her images are in the public domain including those available from the National Archives.
Neshat uses various visual mediums to create artwork that, at its core, represents the resilient and rebellious spirit of women.
Iranian-American visual artist Shirin Neshat was featured on yesterday’s National Public Radio broadcast of All Things Considered. Neshat’s new film, Zanan-e bedun-e mardan (Women Without Men) is now in theaters across the United States, and the artist’s eponymous new book was also recently released with a foreword by Marina Abramovic.
Donald Judd’s library houses 13,000 books spanning a range of subjects as broad as the artist’s thinking. Judd’s arrangement of the library reflects his sensitivity to geography and understanding of the development of the arts, languages and sciences across different cultures.
The Donald Judd Foundation provides a unique virtual tour through the artist’s personal library. It includes an interactive map of the space, which visitors can click to browse by shelf. A hyperlinked photograph of each shelf appears; next, visitors may click on individual books to see a brief description. Book-level records also supply links to a WorldCat database search for the material so that interested parties can find the nearest lending library for each book.
Indiana University will host the 14th annual convention of the Magic Lantern Society of the USA and Canada on May 20-23, 2010. The Magic Lantern Society collects, preserves and shares information on the lantern devices that were invented during the 17th century and were used to entertain and educate audiences prior to the creation of film.
Members of the public are invited to attend the free or low-cost public sessions, which include an exhibit at the Lilly Library, two shows at the Fine Arts Auditorium, a silent film screening with live piano in Whittenberger Auditorium and a “Magic Lantern Spectacular” at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater. Terry Borton, a fourth-generation lanternist and the only professional lanternist in America, will take part in the performances.
For more information, please see Indiana University’s press release (quoted here) or the Magic Lantern Society’s complete conference schedule.
The Photography, Video and Visual Journalism blog for the New York Times, Lens, has revealed their interactive mosaic of photographs which were solicited on Sunday, May 2nd, from readers around the world. The mosaic takes shape as a globe covered with stacks of the digital photographs, corresponding in location to where they were captured at a single moment in time. The globe can be “spun” in any direction to explore various locations, and pictures can be searched by topic: community, arts and entertainment, family, money and the economy, nature and the environment, play, religion, social issues or work. Image-specific URLs are also available so that you can return to your favorite photographs again and again.
Have you ever experienced difficulties opening PowerPoint presentations on a Mac after you’ve created them on a PC, or vice versa? Check out this website with plenty of helpful hints to ensure that your presentations look great no matter what computer you’re using.
If you have any questions about making presentation software work for you, please contact the VRC.
Wherever you are, we hope you’ll have a camera — or a camera phone — in hand. And we hope you’ll be taking a picture to send to Lens that will capture this singular instant in whatever way you think would add to a marvelous global mosaic; a Web-built image of one moment in time across the world.
Read more about this project on Lens, the Photography, Video and Visual Journalism blog for the New York Times. Submit your photographs here (link will be active after 15:00 on May 2nd).
Here’s a quick way for PC users to add YouTube links to PowerPoint presentations:
Mac users have to download videos before inserting into a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation. This is easier with free software like Tooble. Here’s how it works in Keynote:
- http://www.totalapps.net/tutorials/embedding-youtube-video-in-keynote-in-3-easy-steps/
Please join us this Thursday (4/15, 12pm, Rosenwald 405) for a lunchtime TechTalk on “Geospatial Tools for Humanities Research.”
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are powerful tools which combine current information with historical and modern maps for analytic and presentation purposes. VRC student staff member Helen-Mary Sheridan will present an overview of fundamental GIS concepts and present a range of current examples of their use in the humanities, including annotated atlases, a map for tracking geospatial components in literary collections, and (geo)spatial analyses of paintings.
Humanities Computing TechTalks are informal, brown bag style events for learning more about current technology topics relevant to the humanities. TechTalks are free and open to all university faculty, staff and students.
For a current list of future TechTalks, please goto the Humanities Division events calendar and search by sponsor “Computing.”
Now you can (virtually) tour the Sistine Chapel via your computer screen, thanks to a project from Villanova University of Pennsylvania. Created in consultation with the Vatican, this QuickTime Virtual Reality (QTVR) tour of the Sistine Chapel facilitates study of the frescoes and architecture in a new way.
“Villanova students and faculty from the University’s communication and computing science departments spent five nights in a closed Sistine Chapel, gathering images from every corner of the chapel, including Michelangelo’s famous artwork on the chapel ceiling and large fresco, The Last Judgment, on the sanctuary wall. This was the most extensive access ever granted by the Vatican to an outside group.” For more information, see the press release from Villanova University.