Category: viðburðir

Recording of the lecture: Here

Sigurður Gunnarsson, National Gallery of Iceland
When Blue Isn’t Blue: Preserving Color Fidelity in Digitized Masterpieces

Sigurður Gunnarsson, photographer at the National Gallery of Iceland, will share the behind-the-scenes challenges of capturing artworks through photography, and how those challenges are solved. He will talk about creating faithful digital reproductions, getting colors just right, and the trusted methods and standards professionals use to make sure the artwork looks as true to life as possible.

Recording of the lecture: Here

Kathryn Teeter, University of Iceland
Future-Proofing the Past: 3D Scanning Icelandic Turf Houses

The Icelandic turf house is an important part of the country’s history and cultural heritage, yet these unique buildings are increasingly at risk. To ensure the survival of the turf house for future generations, we need to improve our understanding of their structural behaviour. 3D scanning is one way that digital technologies are being combined with museum conservation to increase our knowledge and support long-term conservation efforts. 

Recording of the lecture: Here

Arnoud Wils, Maastricht University
From Static Pages to Interactive Stories: Using AI to bring Art Research to Life

Large Language Models have the potential to transform scanned art catalogues into structured digital resources. This presentation uses the Corpus Rubenianum (a series of over 40 volumes on Rubens) as a case study to showcase how AI can extract bibliographic references, artwork provenance data and iconographic details from unstructured, unattractive PDFs. This data can then be transformed into compelling visualisations to foster art historical research and public engagement.

The lecture will be livestreamed: Here

Pétur Húni Björnsson, University of Copenhagen
Miðlun mynda með IIIF

Ég ætla að spjalla um IIIF staðalinn og sýna dæmi um hvernig ég hef nýtt hann til miðlunar mikils magns mynda í verkefnum mínum. Innleiðing staðalsins krefst ýmissa verkfæra til þess að tilreiða myndir, miðla þeim og birta. Það reyndist fremur snúið að koma öllu heim og saman og krafðist mikillar yfirlegu, en eftir að yfir þann upphafshjalla var komið hefur sýnt sig að það var ferðarinnar virði.

The lecture will be livestreamed: Here

Martin Roček, Charles University & IMAFO, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Clicks, Curses and Catalogs: UX Design for Digital Humanities

The design of a digital tool, such as a database or dictionary, does more than simply provide access to information; it also guides interpretation. This talk explores this dynamic through the lens of user experience (UX). The first part will review several practical methods for improving the usability of scholarly digital resources. The second part will adopt a more critical perspective, asking how interface design itself can be understood as a form of scholarly argument that influences research outcomes. Finally, the talk seeks to connect the practical work of building digital tools with a necessary critical reflection on their impact.

The lecture will be livestreamed: Here

Emily Lethbridge, Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies
Feminist DH: Data in the Kvennaspor-Project Database

The lecture will be livestreamed: Here

Katrín Lísa L. Mikaelsdóttir, Centre for Digital Humanities and Arts, Reykjavík
Drawing the Line (and Knowing Where not to): Why Good Data Presentation Matters

What is “good” information presentation and why does it matter? I argue that responsible data visualisation is not only a method or a technical skill, but a fundamentally humanistic act, one that requires the same interpretive judgement we apply to texts, images, and cultural artefacts. This talk foregrounds the role of humanistic reasoning in visualisation by presenting the shared core principles that govern clear, meaningful and responsible graphical representation. I will examine the interpretive work embedded in visual design, how choices of form, scale, visual hierarchy, colours, and narrative shape what becomes legible, memorable, or (in)visible. Building on this, I offer practical guidance for creating visualisations that clarify without oversimplifying, communicate without distorting, and make their interpretive decisions explicit. I contend that (digital) humanists are not just capable of doing visualisation well, they are urgently needed in conversations about how data is presented and understood, as they are equipped to do it well bringing critical literacy, contextual thinking, ethical awareness, and an understanding of how meaning is conveyed or distorted through representation to an increasingly data-driven world.

The lecture will be livestreamed: Here

Jóhannes B. Sigtryggsson, Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies
Ljóslestrarforrit: lykill að luktum heimildum

Ljóslestur (OCR, optical character recognition) er tækni sem hefur fleygt fram á síðustu árum og hefur gervigreind bæst við sem hjálpartól við hana nýlega. Ljóslestrarforrit eins og Transkribus hafa verið notuð við uppskriftir handskrifaðs texta og meðal annars hér á landi en einnig önnur forrit eins og Google Vision til að lesa úr prentuðu efni. Í verkefninu Málheild síðari alda (MSA) sem nú stendur yfir eru bæði þessi forrit nýtt og mun ég segja frá reynslu okkar af þeim. Verkefnið er styrkt af Innviðasjóði í gegnum Miðstöð stafrænna hugvísinda og lista.

The lecture will be livestreamed: Here

Alice Watterson, Hornafjörður Research Center, University of Iceland
Connected Collections: Co-curating Museum Collections with Local Communities

Local voices can play an important role in the interpretation and communication of museum collections, especially in the Arctic where Indigenous knowledge brings invaluable perspectives to our shared understanding of the past. This talk will discuss case studies from digital outreach projects in Nunavut, Alaska and Greenland designing interactive resources for schools, museums and the general public. These resources bring together a range of media, including 3D scanning and modelling, animation, illustration and short film production, co-curated with local communities.

The lecture will be livestreamed: Here

Katarzyna A. Kapitan, Paris Sciences et Lettres University
Teaching a Computer to Read Medieval Icelandic Manuscripts: A Do-It-Yourself Approach

This paper presents initial results from a project aiming to develop the first open-access FAIR ATR model for medieval Old Norse-Icelandic manuscripts. Using only a small number of training pages to fine-tune the CATMuS-medieval model, we achieved clear improvements in both in-domain and out-of-domain accuracy. These results demonstrate that effective models can be created with minimal data and without expensive hardware, as all experiments were carried out on a standard laptop.

In my talk, I will address the challenge posed by the limited availability of training data and introduce a workflow that enables low-cost fine-tuning of existing generic models for specific research purposes. By analysing the main types of recognition errors—particularly those involving special characters central to Old Norse palaeography—I will discuss the implications for current transcription practices and the challenge of reconciling differing editorial conventions in the field.