Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/904009
maltatoday SUNDAY 19 NOVEMBER 2017 30 This Week What would you say are some of the most urgent issues that impact the digital humanities right now, and how do you seek to address them and confront them through your own work and research? Toni Sant: The most urgent issue from where I stand is one of Digital Curation. This is not just a matter of digital humani- ties but also digital arts, and digital media more broadly. Memory is the keyword bind- ing together digital preserva- tion, digital archiving, digital forensics, and digital heritage. That is why we made sure to have these at the heart of the 2018 DRHA conference. Another significant issue is open access. This is one for which we're grateful for the in- put of Wikimedia Community Malta, who are the foremost proponents of open access and open data in this country. The danger is that we're fac- ing loss of collective memory from digital documents and digital artefacts that are not built for long-term access, ei- ther through lack of engage- ment with digital curation or open access formats and meth- ods. Anastasios Maragiannis: To answer this question, I will bor- row from the Manifesto of Lluís Ortega, from 'The Authorship in Architecture in the Post Digital Age (2017)': "We are currently material organisers... We share our work and digital experiences through public ex- hibitions…" We are practising digital humanities through an amalgamation of techniques through a discipline that con- sists of "skilfully manipulation of historical materials" that "tend towards multiplicity and a "sense of non-finalisation". Throughout my personal work and research engage- ment within the digital hu- manities, I have cultivated open-discussion groups, for people interested in creative digital practices and theories of cross-disciplinarity, interactive design, new media technolo- gies, visual communication and philosophies of the state-of-the current and future digital hu- manities. Susan Broadhurst: There needs to be a greater appre- ciation of the sheer pleasures resulting from Digital Technol- ogy rather than a concentration on its use merely for archiving and utilitarian communication purposes. This year's edition of the conference is taking place in Malta. One of the truisms of the digital humanities is per- haps its ability to transcend geographical barriers. So why is it important to locate these discussions in places like Mal- ta, and what do you think is gained from this localisation? Broadhurst: Malta is on the edge of Europe, and for me represents a liminal space (fol- lowing Victor Turner) that is "betwixt and between" with a potential for experimentation and the creation of new forms as is the very integral use of digital technologies in relation to creativity and innovation. Maragiannis: The DRHA is the heart of internationalising and is bringing together a num- ber of international academics, artists and researchers. Malta's unique geographical location, the rich historical anthropolo- gy and historical human move- ment in combination with the European capital of culture 2018, will offer to DRHA del- egates a unique experience. Sant: The ability to do two things are what makes a con- ference like DRHA really nec- essary in a place like Malta. The first is to bring a significant number of specialised knowl- edge workers to a particular lo- cation to enable others based in that place to interact with them in a concentrated manner. This is why, for example, we're planning to involve as many students of digital arts and hu- manities in the DRHA confer- ence taking place in Malta. The other benefit is that the attention of the same group of people can be turned to their areas of research interest in terms of a particular location. That's why we've teamed up with Heritage Malta, who re- cently launched a major Goog- le Cardboard project involving the digitisation of a large num- ber of museums and other her- itage sites across the Maltese islands. Some of the DRHA participants visiting Malta may be experiencing this technol- ogy for the first time while oth- ers who have broad experience of such technologies will bring their professional perspective to it, enhancing its understand- ing and further use in Malta. Next September, Malta will be hosting the 22nd edition of the Digital Research in the Humanities & Arts (DRHA) Conference at Spajzu Kreattiv, St James Cavalier, Valletta. TEODOR RELJIC sat down with three of its speakers – Susan Broadhurst (School of Arts, Brunel University, London), Anastasios Maragiannis (Department of Creative Professions and Digital Arts, University of Greenwich, London) and Toni Sant (University of Hull, current Artistic Director at Spazju Kreattiv) – about some of the most urgent issues facing the digital humanities today As one of the founding members of the Gabriel Caruana Foundation, Raffaella Zammit speaks to TEODOR RELJIC about how the Foundation's latest workshop- turned-exhibition, Kreaturi drew from Caruana's legacy to motivate kids to create their own 'biomorphic creatures' Examining the digital humanities The DRHA Conference – 2018 will be taking place from September 9 to 12 next year. Closing date for submission of papers to the conference is January 31, 2018. For more information, log on to drha2018.org What was the main spur for you to organise these workshops, and how would you think they commemorate the legacy of Gabriel Caruana? Back in 2014 I started actively help- ing out my dad, Gabriel, with The Mill and his studios, I assisted him and Kite Publishers in his latest book 'Gabriel Caruana'. Over the years we had been discussing how to organise ourselves better and the idea of a vol- untary organisation was always com- ing up. Last year Joyce Camilleri, an artist and art teacher, approached us since she wanted to organise a school activity at The Mill. Of course, we welcomed her and 80 children to The Mill, where over two days they learned about The Mill as an art and cultural centre, Gabriel Caruana, and also had the opportu- nity to express themselves through painting and drawing. This wasn't the first group of children visiting the Mill, but it was my first experience organising such an event. We saw how receptive children were and how they enjoyed The Mill's atmosphere. I started discuss- ing with the Foundation and with Joyce the idea of developing a work- shop and then we roped in Andrea Pullicino, and from there, Kreaturi was born. I started writing a proposal and it was chosen to be funded by the Creative Communities fund of Arts Council Malta. We also got co- financed by APS Bank, and support- ed by Spazju Kreattiv and ZiguZajg. We're very grateful for the support received at every stage of the project. At the age of 88 years, even after some health issues, Gabriel still in- spires and encourages us to be active and it is this creative energy that we want to honour and which inspired us to develop Kreaturi. We wanted to transmit this energy to kids, to provide a space where they can be free to express themselves through visual means. Could you talk a bit about Caruana's biomorphic figures in particular? How do they fit into his overall oeuvre, and why did you find them so amenable for the purposes of this workshop? Caruana is mostly renowned for his ceramic art, clay being his preferred medium. However, he is versatile in different mediums, he is able to transform mundane and discarded objects and imbue them with his ex- pression and quite effortlessly turn into art. We focused on Caruana's biomor- phic figures because they are one of A legacy PHOTOGRAPHY BY ELISA VON BROCKDORFF