Category: VRC

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Images on the Web VRC

Leo Baeck Institute’s Archive of Jewish Life Now Online

 

Yesterday the New York Times announced, “The Leo Baeck Institute, a New York research library and archive devoted to documenting the history of German-speaking Jewry, has completed the digitization of its entire archive, which will provide free online access to primary-source materials encompassing five centuries of Jewish life in Central Europe.”

The online collection for the Leo Baeck Institute is called DigiBaeck, and is:

a growing treasury of artifacts that document the rich heritage of German-speaking Jewry in the modern era. DigiBaeck provides instant access to materials ranging from rare 16th century renaissance books to memoirs that document the experience of German-Jewish émigrés across the world in the 20th century.

In addition to manuscript material and archival photographs, more than 2,600 art objects have been digitized and are accessible on the website. While there is a lot of material digitally available now, on October 16, the expanded archive will be released online, representing the archive online in its entirety.

Via the New York Times

 

Categories
Images on the Web Innovative Technology VRC

Art.sy: a New Online Art Discovery Tool

The New York Times wrote yesterday of a new start-up called Art.sy, which is digitizing works of fine art to catalog in its database, called the “Art Genome Project”. Their service is similar to Pandora, which mapped a “music genome” in order to encourage user discovery of new songs, or Netflix, which uses algorithms to predict and suggest films and movies a user might like.

Art.sy already has 20,000 images in their database, is partnering with galleries, museums, and other cultural institutions to increase their catalog. In addition to traditional subject, genre, and period/movement based descriptions, Art.sy’s team is also tagging works with categories that their system will use “to make connections that are seemingly from different worlds.” These categories include ideas such as “focus on the social margins,” or “personal histories,” and “private spaces.” The system will also search for images that are most similar in terms of composition and color, providing yet another way to access different images.

For more information, see Art.sy’s blog or visit the Art.sy website, where you can request a login or browse the beta site.

Via New York Times

Categories
Exhibitions Images on the Web Museums Photography VRC

Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop

The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently released a new iPad app, “Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop” to accompany a current photography exhibition.

Digital cameras and image-editing software have made photo manipulation easier than ever, but photographers have been doctoring images since the medium was invented. The false “realities” in altered photographs can be either surprising and eye-catching or truly deceptive and misleading.

Faking It is a quiz that asks players to spot which photos are fake and figure out why they were altered. Through fifteen sets of questions accompanied by more than two dozen remarkable images, the Faking It app challenges misconceptions about the history of photo manipulation.

Images in the app range from a heroic portrait of Ulysses S. Grant to a playful portrait of Salvador Dalí, and from New York’s glamorous Empire State Building to Oregon’s sublime Cape Horn.

The app complements the exhibition Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop (on view October 11, 2012–January 27, 2013).

Categories
News VRC

Visit the VRC & Check out our iPad 2!

 

Welcome back students and faculty! To start the new school year off right, our iPad 2 is now set up in the VRC. We hope you’ll come check it out in CWAC 257.

We’ve installed a lot of great apps about art and images that have been featured on our blog and Facebook page and other programs that are useful for art historians, including Keynote. There’s also quick links to LUNA, Chalk, and ARTstor.

We also installed a great app called Flipboard, which we’ve set to display RSS feeds from other blogs pertaining to art, culture, and museums. Flipboard takes these feeds and displays them like a magazine [see screenshot above], making it easy to catch up on the latest news and research.

There’s also a wireless keyboard to go with the iPad, so you can easily check your email, look up campus events, or catch up on the news.

And, as always, the VRC’s iPad 2 can be reserved to teach and present in CWAC.

We look forward to seeing you!

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Presentation Tech Support VRC

New Media Cabinet Equipment in CWAC Classrooms

Our media equipment in CWAC classrooms is better than ever! Each classroom is now equipped with an HD projector, HDMI and VGA connections, and speakers.

Media cabinet keys no longer required! To turn projection on, simply hit the ON button. To connect your laptop to the projection, choose HDMI or VGA, connect your computer to the appropriate cable (newer Mac adapters now included), and press the appropriate button on the panel. You’re all set!

As always, please be sure to turn projectors OFF when your class is finished.

For more information about Mac projection settings in CWAC classrooms, see instructions here. Feel free to contact VRC staff for an orientation.

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VRC

Art Institute of Chicago Images

 

The Art Institute of Chicago recently launched a new website to facilitate using the licensing of the museum’s images for use in publications and other projects.

Art Institute of Chicago Images is your professional resource for images of art from the encyclopedic collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Our Imaging Studio utilizes premier direct digital capture and reproduction technologies to ensure the highest quality—our images accurately match the full range of tones and colors of the original work.

The high-quality images available through their new website are “licensed on a non-exclusive, rights managed (RM) basis, which means the license will be limited to a specific project, size, distribution, medium, and timeframe; price will vary with these factors. To reuse the photo later on or for additional uses, you will need to re-license it.”

For more information, please visit the website or the Help page.

 

Categories
Images on the Web Museums VRC

The Rembrandt Database

For years Rembrandt’s paintings have been the subject of many exhibitions and publications and a specific focus of technical research, which has produced an extensive and wide-ranging body of information and documentation. This material is preserved in various museums, research institutes, archives and laboratories around the world. The documentation is generally difficult to access, still unavailable in digital form, and not yet organized as a coherent and interrelated body of material.

The Rembrandt Database is a sustainable repository of existing information and documentation that is made available in a technologically advanced way. This service does not aim to replace the study of original objects or consultation among colleagues, but rather to speed up and facilitate research.

For more information and to explore the database, view the website.

 

 

Categories
VRC

VRC Closed Monday, 9/3 for Labor Day

The Visual Resources Center will be closed on Monday, September 3rd in observance of Labor Day.

We will reopen on Tuesday September 4th for normal business hours, 8:30a-5:00p.

Have a wonderful and relaxing long weekend!

Image above: Édouard Manet, Boating, 1874. From ARTstor’s Images for Academic Publishing.

Categories
News VRC

VRC Summer Hours

Youngster Unknowingly Has Shared Her Ice Cream Stick with the Dog as She Watches Judging During the Kiddies Parade in Johnson Park in New Ulm, Minnesota

The Visual Resources Center will operate on a reduced summer schedule through Friday, August 31st.

Our summer hours will be 8:30am – 5pm, Monday-Thursday, closed Friday.

Happy summer!

Categories
Images on the Web VRC

VRC Memorial Day Closure

Lake Powell by Lyntha Scott Eiler, Project Documerica, National Archives

The Visual Resources Center will be closed from 2pm, Friday May 25th, through Monday, May 28th. We will reopen on Tuesday with normal business hours. Enjoy the long weekend!

Image above of Lake Powell by Lyntha Scott Eiler from the U.S. National Archives Flickr photostream.