Humane Ingenuity 28: Cornucopia of Cleverness
It's stressful out there; maybe some of you could use a little levity right now. My old colleagues at the Digital Public Library of America, along with our...
Humane Ingenuity 27: Reopening Time
Sorry that it's been over a month since I last wrote. I've been working overtime with my colleagues to reopen a large library that adheres to Covid safety...
Humane Ingenuity 26: Considerate Over Clever
Next month in Barcelona at the PH21 Gallery there will be an exhibit of photography documenting the aching feeling of being alone in normally crowded urban...
Humane Ingenuity 25: Out of Body Experiences
If you need a break, have been at home for a very long time, or are sick of the view out of your window, you can try Window Swap, which shows a video clip of...
Humane Ingenuity 24: Witness and Withness
Over the past month, our library has been discussing ways to address—and more concretely take action to oppose—racism in the aftermath of the murder of...
Humane Ingenuity 23: Reframing Time and Saving Culture
Carrie Ferrin, the first female bicyclist in Nobles County, Minnesota. Photograph by E. F. Buchan, c. 1880. (From the Nobles County Historical Society, via...
Humane Ingenuity 22: More Creative Reuses
Yes, people are re-enacting and re-creating artworks in their homes during the quarantine. No, this is not a new pastime—people have been doing this for...
Humane Ingenuity 21: Functional and Eternal
Tomb relief of the official Ptahshepses, also called Impy, Egyptian, Old Kingdom, Dynasty 6, 2323–2150 BCE. Carved limestone. Harvard Art Museums. During...
Humane Ingenuity 20: Physical Distancing, Social Cohesion
Drawing of the set for John Taverner's opera Thérèse, designed by Alan Barlow, 1979, via the Victoria and Albert Museum's opera exhibit. What would you save...
Humane Ingenuity 19: Credit Where Credit Is Due
Viola Canady, Cathedral Window Quilt, Anacostia Community Museum. CC0 photograph from the Smithsonian Institution's new open access collection. In January...
Humane Ingenuity 18: Closing Time
Metamorphic library table-steps, by Thomas Sheraton, c. 1795. (CC0-licensed image from the Smithsonian Institution's new open access collection, which I'll...
Humane Ingenuity 17: All THAT and More
A rather nice letterpress QR code from Northeastern University's traditional print technology lab, Huskiana Press. (Via Ryan Cordell, who is the founder and...
Humane Ingenuity 16: Imagining New Museums
David Fletcher is a video game artist in London who on the side creates hyper-realistic 3D photogrammetry models of cultural heritage sites and works of art,...
Humane Ingenuity 15: Close but Not Quite
The Picture Description Bot, by Elad Alfassa, runs random Wikimedia Commons images through Microsoft’s Computer Vision API, and then posts the best-guess...
Humane Ingenuity 14: Adding Dimensions
The Library of Necessary Books. An art installation in Singapore where visitors can leave their favorite books. (Via Seb Chan's newsletter.) In HI12 I...
Humane Ingenuity 13: The Best of Both Worlds
Happy New Year, and welcome to 2020! My constant reminder of the passage of time is a small lake near where we live, which transforms itself delightfully...
Humane Ingenuity 12: Automation and Agency
In this issue of HI: dispatches from the frontiers I traversed at the fall meeting of the Coalition for Networked information. Automation and Agency Ben...
Humane Ingenuity 11: Middle-Aged Software
The National Gallery of Denmark has a nicely designed new website that makes all of their digitized artworks openly available, and about two-thirds...
Humane Ingenuity 10: The Nature and Locus of Research
It's getting to be that time of the semester when extracurricular activities, like writing this newsletter, become rather difficult. My day job as a...
Humane Ingenuity 9: GPT-2 and You
Carlotta Corpron (1901-1987) was an artist and photographer who used light to create abstract works from which figures would sometimes emerge. ("Strange...