Tool Development for Image Data Literacy: Understanding Digital Art with complex data analysis – (ImDaLi)

The ImDaLi project researches and develops digital tools for image databases with the aim of both improving the user experience when using archive platforms and testing different approaches to digital image analysis. The focus is on adequate methods for capturing, processing and analyzing works in the field of media art, which holds a special position in art research due to its process-oriented, methodological and disciplinary diversity. Due to the ongoing technological developments, which are rapidly finding their way into the production of media art, as well as the constant transgression of boundaries between different fields of knowledge, digital tools developed so far are not always optimally suited for "traditional" works of art. In order to do justice to the broad spectrum and fast-moving nature of media art production in the context of archiving and scientific evaluation, not only an evaluation but also an adaptation of existing applications and methods is required. The elaboration of innovative navigation and analysis tools as well as the detailed documentation of workflows should support closer networking between different online platforms and enable new forms of extracting knowledge from data holdings. - The Graphic Art Collection Göttweig Abbey (GSSG) and the Archive of Digital Art (ADA) serve as a test environment for the applications. ADA is a pioneer community platform for the documentation of media art, which evaluated about 5000 artists and now gathers more than 600 participants and over 50000 entries of digital objects. ADA has a Social and Semantic Web platform and digital applications, from over 20 years of community science and open research. - In order to realize the goals, two concrete levels will be addressed. First, the controlled vocabulary of the thesaurus will be aligned with epistemological concepts of other art collections and linked by means of semantic web technology. - On the other hand, the Lightbox tool, which exists in a 1.0 version, will be further developed. The starting point was Aby Warburg's approach of comparative iconography, which focused on the analysis of semantic and visual connections between artworks. With the Lightbox, this method is transferred into the digital space. In the further course of the project, the tool will be successively further developed to the requirements of the analysis of contemporary media art, taking into account the technical possibilities. Another important aspect of ImDaLi that affects both levels is the application of different strategies for data visualization. In digital archives, graphical visualization methods are indispensable in order to present complex structures in a way that is comprehensible to users. The project will also use visualization strategies to explore creative ways of sorting and combining data sets that could prove fruitful for the analysis of media art. - Online exhibitions and further integration strategies: increasing and exploring usability through quantitative and qualitative research methods. - Development of an API for scientific data exchange with (art historical) repositories and Digital Cultural Heritage projects, e.g. Europeana.