Abstract
Scholarly use of digital material moves from catalogues (locator services) to digital duplicates intended for human study to digital versions intended for computer analysis. We have been through this entire path for text, the easiest material to digitise, and we are now fairly far along with artistic imagery. More difficult content, such as costume and dance, will move through the same stages in the future. Perhaps the most important question is whether the nature of critical research changes as the tools change. Many early applications of computers were authorship studies, for example. More generally, does research based on computer analysis ask the same kind of questions as other research? Is it done on the same materials? So far, it would appear that the same materials are considered, and the same questions asked, but there are newer tools to apply. Algorithmic research can also study larger quantities of material, perhaps reducing the single-work focus of much cultural study.
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Lesk, M. (2013). From Descriptions to Duplicates to Data. In: Bowen, J., Keene, S., Ng, K. (eds) Electronic Visualisation in Arts and Culture. Springer Series on Cultural Computing. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5406-8_2
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