Maps are too exciting! Digital innovations in Cartography

Celestial Globe by John Senex (1728), Rare Books and Manuscript Reading Room of the Weston Library, Oxford

key details

10 October 2024
On site (Weston Library, Oxford) – Online on Zoom
11am — 5pm (CET)

about

For the past two years, Factum Foundation has been working with the Bodleian Libraries and Oxford University on ARCHiOx (the Analysis and Recording of Cultural Heritage in Oxford), parallel project to ARCHiVe. Both projects share the vision of making high-resolution 3D and color-recording a regular part of the workflow in libraries, museums, and private collections, with the final goal of improving accessibility and research.

This Sunderland Collection Symposium, dedicated to digital innovation in the field of cartography, was conceived and generously funded by the Sunderland Collection. The symposium is organised in association with The Bodleian Libraries and ARCHiOx.

Complete recordings of the talks, along with insights about the speakers, are available at Oculi Mundi – Sunderland Collection.

 

Programme

11am (CET)

Morning Session: The art of cartography and new evidence

  • Richard Ovenden | University of Oxford
  • Judith Siefring | Bodleian Library
  • John Barrett | Bodleian Library
  • Nick Millea | Bodleian Library
  • Yossef Rapoport | Queen Mary University
  • Sanne Frequin | Utrecht University

11–11.15am: Welcome by Richard Ovenden OBE, Bodley’s Librarian, Head of Gardens, Libraries and Museums at the University of Oxford.

11.15am–1pm: Panel and Q&A: The art of cartography and new evidence
Chaired by Judith Siefring, Head of Digital Collections Discovery, Bodleian Libraries

  • Material evidence of the surface of objects (20 minutes)
    John Barrett, Lead Photographer at ARCHiOx and the first person to use the Selene Photometric Stereo System within a major library.
  • Spectacular! A digital exploration of medieval Gough Map of Britain (20 minutes)
    Nick Millea, Map Curator at the Bodleian Libraries
  • The Greatest Medieval Map-Maker: Al-Sharif al-Idrisi and Roger’s Silver Disc (20 minutes)
    Yossef Rapoport, Professor of Islamic History at Queen Mary University, London
  • A Ship’s Globe in the Centraal Museum, Utrecht (20 minutes)
    Sanne Frequin, Assistant Professor of Humanities and Art History, University of Utrecht

1.30pm (CET)

Special presentation – Nesting Globes: visualising the current global situation

  • Bruce Mau | Massive Change Network

1.30pm–2pm: Special presentation – Nesting Globes: visualising the current global situation
Bruce Mau, designer, philosopher, architect, and educator.

3pm (CET)

Afternoon session: Mapping in a digital world

  • Giovanni Pala | University of Oxford
  • Katherine McDonough | Lancaster University
  • Sarah Kenderdine | École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
  • Ed Parsons | Google Earth
  • Adam Lowe | Factum Foundation

3–4.45pm: Panel and Q&A: Mapping in a digital world
Chaired by Giovanni Pala, economic historian of technology and information

  • Map Search: Using AI to explore map content (20 minutes)
    Katherine McDonough, Lecturer in Digital Humanities at Lancaster University; Senior Research Fellow and head of the Machines Reading Maps Project at The Alan Turing Institute.
  • Deep Mapping: from archives to the universe (20 minutes)
    Sarah Kenderdine, Professor of Digital Humanities at École Polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland; Director of the Laboratory of Experimental Museology.
  • Geospatial transformation (20 minutes)
    Ed Parsons, Geospatial Technologist, tech evangelist, and co-founder of Google Earth.

4.50pm–5pm: Conclusions: Adam Lowe, Founder of Factum Foundation and Factum Arte

Creative Access and Digital Innovation

© Carolyn Lazard, A Recipe for Disaster (still), 2018
© Liza Sylvestre, Captioned-Channel Surfing (still), 2016
© Kamran Behrouz, Avatars and faces - creature comforts, 2022

23 January 2024
Online on Zoom
4:30pm — 6:30pm (CET)

Curator

  • Virginia Marano | University of Zurich and MASI Lugano

About

The event features four professionals and experts in the fields of accessibility and emerging digital innovations: Virginia Marano (University of Zurich and MASI Lugano), Nina Mühlemann (Artist, Bern Academy of the Arts), Kamran Behrouz (Visual artist), Saverio Cantoni (Visual artist) and Georgina Kleege (University of California, Berkeley). The event explores the role of new digital technologies from an artistic and academic perspective, delving into issues related to digital knowledge and spatial fruition. Guests and the participating group will have the opportunity to discuss and initiate a discussion on the points of convergence between art, scientific research and digital innovation with a view to new strategies for accessibility and inclusion.

The online panel discussion is curated by Virginia Marano, a Fondazione Giorgio Cini fellow in the PNRR–PEBA project for the Removal of Physical, Cognitive and Sensory Barriers in Cultural Sites (EU-funded grant – NextGenerationEU).

The class is held in English and has live American sign language (ASL) interpretation by First Choice Interpreting Service.

Contributors

Virginia Marano

Holds a PhD in art history from the University of Zurich. She is the coordinator and co-founder of the research project “Rethinking Art History through Disability” at the University of Zurich. Currently, she is fellow researcher at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice and works as curatorial assistant at MASI (Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana), Lugano.

Kamran Behrouz

They are a Non-binary Visual Artist, born and raised in Tehran, currently working, and living in Zurich. Their PhD, entitled ‘Cosmopolitics of the Body’, uses posthuman critical theory as a navigational tool to examine the boundaries of bodies and humanity’s embedded and embodied cultures. Kamran saturates the Queer Identity throughout their art, in order to draw a cartography of belonging and displacement.

Nina Mühlemann

Is an artist and scholar based in Zurich. They are currently working as a postdoc on the SNF-funded research project “Aesthetics of the Im/Mobile” at the Bern Academy of the Arts, researching im/mobile practices of disabled artists. In 2020 Nina Mühlemann and Edwin Ramirez founded Criptonite, a crip queer theatre project that centres an aesthetics of access.

Georgina Kleege

Is a blind writer and disability studies scholar who recently retired from the University of California, Berkeley, and now lives in New York City. Her recent books include: Sight Unseen, Blind Rage: Letters to Helen Keller and More than Meets the Eye: What Blindness Brings to Art.

Saverio Cantoni

Is a white-passing cyborg, disabled –oral Deaf– artist based in Berlin. Situating their practice in the sonic space, Saverio is working through the lenses of crip theory, queer theory and disobedient archives, with the aim to destabilize existing power structures and to rethink the normative understanding of sensorial experiences. Saverio is actively participating in the Sickness Affinity Group (SAG), a group of art workers and activists who work on the topic of sickness/disability and/or are affected by sickness/disability.