AI methods for digital heritage

Workshop at KI2020

43rd German Conference on Artificial Intelligence, September 21 – 25, 2020: Bamberg, Germany

Aim and scope

The digital transition opens new perspectives for researchers interested in cultural processes. An increasing part of the material and immaterial heritage of Western culture is accessible via digital representations such as digital editions of manuscripts, multispectral images of paintings or 3D models of archeological findings. Digital representations have the obvious advantage of permitting simultaneous remote access. This is of interest both to researchers as to the general public. Via web interfaces, scholars and enthusiasts can search for miniatures in the digital edition of the Codex Manesse or interact with the music scores of the Digitale Interaktive Mozart Edition.

Additional effort is needed to include more cultural creations in the digital transition. Beyond that, the sheer number of those creations already digitally accessible — almost 60 million on the Europeana aggregation platform — raises new challenges for humanities scholars. The task of analyzing and linking the many pieces of information becomes more important and difficult than ever.

AI methods provide solutions to some of the challenges involved. The Semantic Web technology stack, for instance, permits knowledge-based algorithms to assist scholars in the task of linking large cultural data sets. Another issue is the vagueness and uncertainty omnipresent in the historic study of cultural processes. AI research has devised a number of methods able to deal with these phenomena. It is important, however, to realize that humanities scholars have specific requirements. Different from many AI applications in engineering, it is generally not the goal to resolve all ambiguities. This needs new approaches to classification, for instance.

Workshop program

14:00–14:15, Christoph Schlieder
Welcome
14:15–15:00, Günther Görz:
AI methods for digital heritage
Extended abstract, slides
15:00–15:30, Jahnvi Gupta, Prathmesh Madhu, Ronak Kosti, Peter Bell, Andreas Maier, and Vincent Christlein:
Towards Image Caption Generation for Art Historical Data
Extended abstract, slides
15:30–16:00, Piotr Kuroczyński, Peggy Große:
Ontology for Scientific Documentation of source-based 3D reconstruction of architecture
Extended abstract
16:00–16:30
Virtual Coffee Break
16:30–17:00, Mark Fichtner:
Using semantic web technologies for the digitization of heterogeneous university collections in the long run
Extended abstract, slides
17:00–17:30, Sarah Wagner:
Reconstruction of the Brandenburg-Prussian Kunstkammer using Semantic Web Technologies
Extended abstract
17:30–18:00, Simon Schiff, Felix Kuhr, Sylvia Melzer, Ralf Möller:
AI-based Companion Services for Humanities
Extended abstract, slides
18:00–18:30, Christoph Schlieder
Final discussion

Call for paper

The workshop gathers AI researchers and interested humanities scholars. We encourage submissions that report on work in progress or present a synthesis of emerging research trends. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Submission: We solicit an extended abstract which describes your research questions, the methodological approach and your findings. We very much encourage submissions that include conclusions stating research priorities in the field of AI methods for digital heritage. The extended abstracts (500–1000 words) should be written in English, formatted according to the Springer LNCS template and submitted as a PDF file. Please, submit the abstract by mail to christoph.schlieder@uni-bamberg.de.

Workshop organizers and program committee

Christoph SchliederUniversity of Bambergworkshop organizer
Günther GörzUniversity of Erlangenworkshop organizer
Andreas HenrichUniversity of BambergPC member
Peter BellUniversity of ErlangenPC member
Mark FichtnerGermanisches NationalmuseumPC member
Piotr KuroczyńskiHochschule MainzPC member

Important dates

Deadline for Submission:
June 28, 2020
Notification of Authors:
July 26, 2020
KI 2020 early registration ends:
July 31, 2020
Workshop date:
September 21, 2020, 2:00 pm – 6:30 pm

Registration

Members of DHd (Digital Humanities im deutschsprachigen Raum) and EADH (European Association for Digital Humanities) may register for the workshop without registering for the conference. In that case, a reduced fee of 100 € applies. Please, use the KI 2020 conference website for registering.