Skip to main content
Ingenium Logo

You are leaving IngeniumCanada.org

✖


This link leads to an external website that Ingenium does not control. Please read the third-party’s privacy policies before entering personal information or conducting a transaction on their site.

Have questions? Review our Privacy Statement

Vous quittez IngeniumCanada.org

✖


Ce lien mène à un site Web externe qu'Ingenium ne contrôle pas. Veuillez lire les politiques de confidentialité des tiers avant de partager des renseignements personnels ou d'effectuer une transaction sur leur site.

Questions? Consultez notre Énoncé de confidentialité

Ingenium The Channel

Langue

  • Français
Search Toggle

Menu des liens rapides

  • Ingenium Locations
  • Shop
  • Donate
  • Join
Menu

Main Navigation

  • Browse
    • Categories
    • Media Types
    • Boards
    • Featured Stories
  • About
    • About The Channel
    • Content Partners

Music meets public history and digital humanities in Garth Wilson Fellowship

Share
3 m
Jul 19, 2021
Categories
Arts & Design
Categories
Communications
Education
Sciences
Social Science & Culture
Media
Article
Profile picture for user Victoria Hawco
By: Victoria Hawco
A desk with monochromatic white and silver objects on it, including an open laptop, a cellphone, a coffee cup, and several books. There is a plant in the background, and a white wall behind the desk.
Photo Credit
Pixabay from Pexels

As a student in Carleton University’s Public History program, I have been trained, among other things, to look at the forest — and not the trees. Larger themes, messages across communities and through history, and trends in the social and cultural development of different publics are all of concern. Conversely, my work specializing in digital humanities in that same program has me focusing on the details. Great meaning can come from the smallest data point, and should be examined with its whole context. My position as the Garth Wilson Fellow at Ingenium – Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation has allowed me to do both at the same time. 

With a long-running interest in music, I had the opportunity to dive into a project that combined music with public history and digital humanities. I worked with Ingenium curators David Pantalony and Tom Everrett — and alongside historians and researchers from Paris and Berlin — to add Canadian artifacts to an existing acoustics digital database. I had the opportunity to discuss the ontology of the database, to contribute to it, and to learn from experts in the field about the future of digital databases — and how to improve them. 

The project was every bit the forest that my public history training had taught me to expect. Through conversations with David and Tom, and by participating in international meetings, I learned firsthand about how museums deal with digital catalogues and databases. We discussed ways to create a digital database and exhibition that is as tactile and object forward as possible. In a museum climate where the digital sphere is more important than ever, our conversations were enlightening and heartening; they gave me a real sense of where my field was going and how I could contribute to it.

More than that, this same project — and my work in the Fellowship — allowed me to work with the smallest details in the way that my digital humanities training has taught me to appreciate. Outside of merely discussing the nuts and bolts of a digital database, the data entry aspect of my Fellowship was really valuable. By entering objects and collection profiles into the database, I was given a chance to dive deep into the details of these material artifacts. I was able to develop an appreciation for the importance of material history — even though I was disconnected from the physicality of those objects due to pandemic restrictions at the Ingenium buildings. I learned to find meaning in the details of dates, of measurements, and of provenance. I learned that even the photos of artifacts should be treated as artifacts!

This is what I like best about digital work: handling the data is a lot like handling the actual objects. The details contain real meaning and real history; even the ones that appear insignificant are multifaceted upon a more serious look. Digital work allows each tree — each data point — to generate meaning independently, and then to be viewed as a part of a larger whole. 

My major research project for my MA is about combining close reading and distant reading to learn more about the public history field as a whole. It is about stepping back from the field and looking at its thousands of published articles all at once using digital tools, all in order to understand its trends and philosophies over time. I could not have asked for a better fellowship project to give me clarity about how to do this. Additionally, as I prepare to start my PhD in Cultural Mediations and a diploma in Curatorial Studies at Carleton University, I will take this experience of working in a museum environment with me to inform my further work and education in this field.

Though this work was not without its difficulties — learning on the job is much harder when working from home and so disconnected from the museum space — the opportunity to dive into digital archives, and to work and contribute to a living database, has been incredibly valuable.
 

Tags
sound, music, acoustics, Garth Wilson Fellowship, digital humanities
Author(s)
Profile picture for user Victoria Hawco
Victoria Hawco

Victoria Hawco is a recent graduate of Carleton University’s MA in Public History with a specialization in Digital Humanities. Her project focused on producing a macroscopic view of the public history field using topic modelling tools.

Related Stories

A large impact crater viewed from the rim, a woodern spoon full of small yellow grains, a close up of a forearm being tattooed.

3 things you should know about the untapped potential of millet, the permanence of tattoos, and asteroid airbursts

A bushplane, the de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver, on display at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum. A new text panel sits in front of the aircraft: a gray structure with wood-tone side panels and dark metal legs. Its backlit surface presents the name of the aircraft, a selection of images, and interpretive texts. A life-size display of a dock sits to the right, followed by another aircraft and panel.

Whispering Loudly: An Update about the “Quiet Updates”

A photograph of the large, multicoloured and multimedia Northern Lights mural.

"Northern Lights" 3-D Mural: A Colourful Artistic Tribute to Canada’s Jet Age Beginnings

Colourful Eckert IV map projection generated by AI

Art to Critically Examine AI & Robotics

The Shell By-Plane X 100 Astroterramare of Professor Septimus Urge (far right), Pleasure Gardens of the Festival of Britain, Battersea Park, London, England. Anon., “New British Jet Unique, but Not Matchless.” Aviation Week, 18 August 1952, 44.

Heath Robinson / Rube Goldberg machines that Heath Robinson and “Rube” Goldberg themselves would have approved of; Or, The wonderful world of Frederick Rowland Emett and his things

Sophie working with a series of toaster artifacts placed on a worktable.

A Toast to the Collection: The History of Toasters in Canada

A typical Tillson Company Limited advertisement. Anon. “Tillson Company Limited.” The Canadian Grocer & General Storekeeper, 13 May 1892, 19.

“A Food, not a Fad:” The life and times of Edwin Delevan Tillson of Tillsonburg, Ontario

A painting depicts a castle-like building at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.

Living in two worlds: Celebrating the Park Car Murals

A woman is silhouetted in front of a circular, glowing showcase presenting the Koenig Sound Analyser. The title, “Seeing Sound” is visible on the wall.

Mind the gap: The positive impact of multi-sensory experiences

An acrylic harp on a table being played while two spectators watch.

Music meets technology: Raising the bar

A clear, plastic harp-shaped frame has a series of colourful wires coming out of the top. The harp sits on a countertop against a wall; a colourful mural can be seen in the background.

Music meets technology: Building a laser harp

A white box is filled with seven objects. Two of them are boxes of metal type, labelled with white tags and black writing. The labels read: “880617,” “880618,” “880627,” and “880628.” The boxes are surrounded by the other artifacts that they will be packed with for transfer.

Inside the cigar box: A peek into a small, Canadian printing press

Footer

About The Channel

The Channel

Contact Us

Ingenium
P.O. Box 9724, Station T
Ottawa ON K1G 5A3
Canada

613-991-3044
1-866-442-4416
contact@IngeniumCanada.org
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Channel

    • Channel Home
    • About the Channel
    • Content Partners
  • Visit

    • Online Resources for Science at Home
    • Canada Agriculture and Food Museum
    • Canada Aviation and Space Museum
    • Canada Science and Technology Museum
    • Ingenium Centre
  • Ingenium

    • Ingenium Home
    • About Ingenium
    • The Foundation
  • For Media

    • Newsroom
    • Awards

Connect with us

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive the latest Ingenium news straight to your inbox!

Sign Up

Legal Bits

Ingenium Privacy Statement

© 2023 Ingenium

Symbol of the Government of Canada
  • Browse
    • Categories
    • Media Types
    • Boards
    • Featured Stories
  • About
    • About The Channel
    • Content Partners