Discussion of AHRC Digital Transformations theme, followed by discussion of nature of digital disruption and change. Examples of transformative projects involving use of sound, as part of symposium organised by the Listening Experience Database: http://led.kmi.open.ac.uk

1. Digital Transformations
Andrew Prescott

2. AHRC Strategic Themes
• Established in 2010 following AHRC strategic
consultation
• Four themes: Science in Culture; Translating Cultures;
Care for the Future; and Digital Transformations
• Themes work closely with the Connected Communities
programme, a cross-council programme led by AHRC
• Also connections with Digital Economy programme, led
by EPSRC
• Role of theme leader fellows

3. Work under the AHRC’s ‘Digital Transformations’
theme explores the potential of digital
technologies to transform research in the arts and
humanities
and seeks to ensure that arts and humanities
research is at the forefront of tackling such crucial
issues such as intellectual property, cultural
memory and identity, and communication and
creativity in a digital age.

4. AHRC Digital Transformations theme
Funding Calls to Date
• Highlights for research networks and fellowships from 2011-13
• Exploratory grants, 2012, across whole theme
• Large grant awards for ‘beacon’ projects, 2013: Digital Panopticon; Fragmented
Heritage; Transforming Musicology
• Big Data Capital Funding programme, Co-Creation Awards (with Connected
Communities programme), 2013
• Big Data awards, 2014
• Amplification awards, 2014
• Small grants (closing shortly)
• Future of the Academic Book (with British Library), 2014: study to be undertaken by
UCL and King’s College London with Research Information Network

5. www.digitalpanopticon.org
• The impact of the different types of penal punishments on the
lives of 66,000 people sentenced at The Old Bailey between
1780 and 1875
• Transferable methods for understanding and exploiting complex
bodies of genealogical, biometric, and administrative data (eg
linking, visualisation)
• Addressing major issues with contemporary policy significance

6. www.fragmentedheritage.com
• using crowdsourcing techniques to enable surveys of
large-scale archaeological sites of significance in early
history of human evolution
• development of technique for automated refitting of
images of archaeological fragments
• experimenting with new technologies eg high resolution
aerial imagery

7. www.transforming-musicology.org
• How emerging technologies for working with music as
sound and score can transform musicology
• Portfolio of projects ranging from lute music to
Wagner
• Exploring how musical communities on the Web
engage with their music by employing Music
Information Retrieval tools in developing a social
platform for furthering musical discussion online

8. Working with existing data:
Standards for Networking Ancient Prosopographies
(SNAP): snapdrgn.net

9. Working with existing data:
SAMUELS (Semantic Annotation and Mark-Up for
Enhancing Lexical Searches)

10. Deep Film Access project: University of Brighton

11. New methods: 3D imaging of standing stones in Wales
from uploaded photographs, with 3D printing of models:
heritagetogether.org

12. Helen Douglas, The Pond at Deuchar, part of the
‘Transforming Artist Books’ project:
http://helendouglas.onlineculture.co.uk/ttp/ttp.html

13. The Secret Life of a Weather Datum:
secretlifeofdata.wordpress.com

14. The Gutenberg Bible led to religious reformation
while the Web appears to be leading towards
social and economic reformation. But the Digital
Industrial revolution, because of the issues and
phenomena surrounding the Web and its
interactions with society, is occurring at lightning
speed with profound impacts on society, the
economy, politics, and more.
Michael Brodie, Verizon

18. I believe that the most useful and novel inventions
and improvements of the present day are mere
progressive steps in a highly wrought and highly
advanced system, suggested by, and dependent on,
other previous steps, their whole value and the
means of their application probably dependent on
the success of some or many other inventions, some
old, some new…
In most cases they result from a demand which
circumstances happen to create. Most good things
are being thought of by many persons at the same
time.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel

19. Model of Newcomen
Steam Engine at the
University of Glasgow
repaired by James Watt
in 1765

20. Steve Jobs as the heir of James Watt: New Yorker,
November 14, 2011

21. Questioning rhetorics of transformation
and innovation
• ‘Digital transformations’ refers to (and misinterprets)
the ‘disruptive’ models of Christensen
• The process of innovation is frequently a continuum
of incremental development (Steve Jobs as
‘tinkerer’): particularly true in arts and humanities
• What is the relationship of projects to the digital /
knowledge economy?
• Successive attempts to promote AHRC involvement
with digital programmes have relied on rhetoric of
innovation: do we need to develop fresh arguments
(eg Dig Panopticon’s policy questions)

22. Digital Materialities
• Notwithstanding anxieties about quantification in
arts and humanities, use of visualisation makes
research increasingly an interactive and aesthetic
experience, and design is key component
• At beginning of theme, data seemed increasingly
evanescent and quicksilver-like. But the digital
continuum is a constantly surprising one, and
methods of exploring the materiality of data have
become increasingly prominent as the theme has
developed

24. tangible-memories.com

25. http://vimeo.com/80058198

26. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCYn7oQlLiA

27. http://www.dezeen.com/2014/03/31/imogen-heap-gloves-mini-
frontiers-movie/

29. Re-Collecting
• 1990s cry was ‘Access not Collections’ and access has
been another hardy perennial of digital rhetoric
• Theme sought to move beyond digitisation.
Consequently, strong emphasis on building collections,
shifting their boundaries and remediating them
• Creating new collections: recording historic and cultural
material, collecting data created by individuals
• Placing collections in new media and contexts (internet
of things)
• Reflecting on the nature of existing collections and
archives
• Marginalia Machine: http://vimeo.com/101507221

30. Chris Watson, ‘In St Cuthbert’s Time’: a seventh-century
soundscape of Lindisfarne
https://soundcloud.com/experimedia/chris-watson-in-st-cuthberts

31. Virtual Paul’s Cross Project: digital re-creation of John
Donne’s Gunpowder Day Sermon, 1622:
http://vpcp.chass.ncsu.edu/listen-from-the-cross-yard/

32. Nottingham Tape Club
http://www.meagreresource.com/other-projects/tape/
nctrc.html