Update: From Living History to Visual Culture Theory

 Due to sickness this past Monday, my first project update arrives a week later than my peers. I am actually glad that it worked out this way as prior to the submission of the first draft of the lit review I likely would have focused the uncertainty in my ability to actually complete that assignment, having never done one before. In the wake of our first submission, I am reflecting on some gaps in my project that are included in my thesis but not supported by the exhibition at present. For example, an exhibition in the University Gallery is advantageous for numerous reasons. The fact that it's a white cube type of infrastructure lends itself well to the problem I address through my criticism of Modernist curatorial methodology. Additionally, it also functions as an event space so audiences with varying levels of investment in and understanding of art exhibitions will experience my subversive method of curatorial praxis. However, I do not have access to the institutional documentation that supports that gallery space and it does not have an interpretive development policy in the way that art museums ideally would. In this way, the gallery space is almost a transplant environment and my exhibit analogous to a traveling show. Communal response should directly influence RIT Archives institutional management approaches. This presents a unique challenge as visitors are disassociated from the Archives central collection and exhibit spaces when interacting with my exhibit. I'm currently mulling over a tagging interactive that could be utilized by the art team once the exhibit comes down.

The most significant change my project has underwent since I last posted is that I am no longer primarily pulling from living history and am instead am focusing on different visual culture theorists like Eileen Hooper-Greenhill, Grant Kester, Amelia Jones, and Tracey Warr. Feminist performance art remains one of the primary arbidges between passive and active viewership, and for the most part the project has stayed fundamentally the same. I'm looking forward to further developing curatorial text for my exhibition in the coming weeks.

First Update: Danni Kuntz

 Hello again!

I feel as if a lot has happened since my first post. Firstly, and most importantly, I chose a specific topic: Everyday Life in Ancient Rome. I think this project has a lot of potential, and it is helping me prepare for my future plans. In the time since my last post, I've compiled my sources and annotated them, written an abstract, and even have started to work on a literature review for my project. It's been a lot of work, but I've also had a lot of fun delving into my topic of choice. 

Capstone Update 10/01/2026

Since last blog post, I have changed the goals and output of my capstone. I decided to go from a paper to a project because it will allow me to gain tangible experience in operating as a museum professional. The project will still be centered around LGBTQIA2S+ representation in a GLAM setting, like my proposal originally was. The main difference is what my thesis has changed into. Now I plan on gathering an oral history interview with a steward of LGBTQIA2S+ resources within a library setting. This interview will be the basis of my capstone, complimented by research on both the standards of conducting the oral history interviews of queer communities and on the operations of an LGBTQIA2S+ library.

Because of this change of plans, I am not quite as on track as I had hoped to be at this point in our fall semester. My first order of business since this reorientation is to find all of my sources, annotate them by next class and work on a full draft of a literary review. I also need to identify a subject for the project and receive their permission for an interview. My methods are not yet determined for the interview portion, and I do not have any present experience with oral history, but I hope to consult with Museum Studies and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies staff members to come up with a solid plan on how to approach the session. 

-Bella

First Update

Since my last blog post, I have further honed my idea and found more sources that I have annotated. I will still be comparing and contrasting the films Barry Lyndon and Andrei Rublev to examine how they represent and interpret the past differently and make sense of fragmented history. In addition to comparing and analyzing the films, I will be relating how the creation and interpretation of history in these films relate to curation and interpretation in the museum world. Ultimately, I hope to showcase the strength of these films and to make the case that film/art can play a role in understanding the past. 

Changing Directions + Status Update

Hello! 

Since my initial post, the direction of my project has shifted considerably. I am still doing research regarding digital collections, but my new research question is "How can multispectral data and IIIF annotations be used to enhance user interaction, discovery, and scholarship in digital collections?" Multispectral imaging has the potential to completely reframe collection items, but results are generally publicly unavailable or stored in separate repositories. IIIF allows image stacks to be created and manipulated in digital collections through its choice cookbook recipe, but this feature remains underutilized in the GLAM field. I hope to create a small prototype digital collection using medieval manuscript leaves to showcase this functionality. One of my goals with this collection is to ensure compatibility with manuscript reconstruction projects like Fragmentarium, since having these images present with their true-color counterparts could reveal new insights into these codices.

So far I have written my abstract and made significant revisions to it. I have identified around 20 sources that I will use for my project. One of them has significantly influenced how I think about my project: Hannekan's 2023 article that introduces the concept of "deep digitization"-- combining multiple imaging modalities in an online environment that allows objects to be studied in the broadest way possible. Currently, I am finishing my annotated bibliography and starting my lit review. I'm trying to figure out how I want to structure it, which I anticipate will probably be the most difficult part. I also have gone down a few rabbit holes related to (but not really contributing to) my project. Otto F. Ege's "I am a Biblioclast" is such a fascinating glimpse into the method behind his madness. I can't stop thinking about how his eight year old daughter could not sleep until an illuminated manuscript leaf was hung in her room. 

All the best, 

Alec 

Update on WWII Enlistment Records

 So far, my thesis is going well. The most difficult part is holding myself back from beginning data processing. I’ve scoured the internet and found that, as I suspected, there is little to no research on standard data management for internally derived datasets in cultural heritage. This works in my favor, as I can use this project to fill that gap.

My plan is to take GIS data ethics from archaeology and data management strategies from machine learning, weave them together, and create a framework to serve the needs of cultural heritage institutions. On that note, I need to define a word for cultural heritage that excludes archaeology. I find that there is a conflation between archaeological GIS and historical GIS. Actually, I would go so far as to say there is a difference between historical GIS and the point of this project. In archaeological GIS the spatial data comes from the object's location. In historical GIS there is both intrinsic and extrinsic spatial data. This generally takes one of two forms: A map (intrinsic) or provenance (extrinsic). What this project works with is a collection with intrinsic textual spatial data. That is to say there is no spatial data within the object or about the object, we are interpreting the text to obtain spatial data. Technically, this is intrinsic data, however it is clearly different from a map.

Returning to the point, I have been messing around with the 2002 WWII enlistment data. I converted the ASCII code to hexadecimal, which with the help of Claude was quite easy, but did increase the file size to 5 gb (yes gb). I was expecting 50-60 gb. Now that the data is in hex, it needs to be decoded. To do so I will need to (a) figure out a way to extract all the codes from the documentation quickly and (b) how to effectively chunk the data to avoid sitting for hours while the code runs. Outside of the lit review the next step is figuring out OCR.

Update on my progress

Since my last post I have made a few changes to my topic. I am now focusing on how museums interpret three substances that have been understood historically as medicine but have changed meanings over time. I am using various primary sources and four exhibits from different institutions. I will be examining how they interpret these substances, what materials they chose to use, and how their institutional perspectives influence their interpretations. The three substances I have chosen to focus on are tobacco, alcohol, and opium and the medicines derived from it. Thus far I have found fifteen sources four of which are the exhibits I plan to examine, have annotated all 15, and have made a revised draft for my abstract and thesis statement/question. I plan to use these sources to create a research paper into how museums address the nuances of the ever-changing views surrounding these substances, and what role their institutional bias's play in forming these interpretations. One example of this is the DEA museum has an exhibition on the opium poppy which skews towards the illicit drug aspect of opium/opioids. 

Thesis Progress Update #1 | Allie Cassella

Hey everyone! Hope you all are having a good fall semester. 

Since my last post, I have been doing a ton of work on my thesis project and I decided on a topic. As I said in my introduction, I work in the Cultural Heritage Imaging Lab with the MISHA system. Multispectral imaging has been used for pigment identification, as every pigment reflects or absorbs light differently across different wavelengths, giving each one a distinct spectral signature. I was curious if that would also work for pigments with poison or that use an animal binder (milk, eggs, animal glue). They should have a different spectral signature from regular pigments. I am going to focus on just poison books, and work with the Rochester Public Library to try and image some suspected poison books with the MISHA system. I wanted to try and connect my thesis project with what I do in the lab, and also with my minor, criminal justice, which is why I decided to try and look at poison books and protein binders. I had a bunch of other potential ideas to look at, including seeing if MISHA could be used for forensic anthropology or to detect drug soaked paper (it is a way of smuggling drugs into prison), but I decided that my research question was way too broad. I would not physically be able to do it all in a year, and I had to think about what I could realistically do, and that was studying poison books. I have been working on finding and annotating new sources, as I had to cut a bunch that were now unrelated, and editing my abstract so it reflects my topic. Next step is more editing, and starting to draft a literature review with my sources. 

See you all next time!

-Allie