Why Digital Art History?

Abstract

In February 2014, eighty participants gathered at Columbia College, in downtown Chicago, in the two days leading up to the annual College Art Association (CAA) conference. This gathering was the second THATCamp to take place in conjunction with CAA's annual conference (the first occurred at CAA 2013 in New York City). THATCamp, which stands for The Humanities and Technology Camp, is an “unconference” that is managed nationally by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM), George Mason University, in Fairfax, Virginia. Current THATCamp coordinator at the RRCHNM, Amanda French, participated in THATCamp CAA and helped to lead introductions and scheduling over the two-day event. The organizers of THATCamp CAA 2014 were Anne Swartz, Savannah College of Art and Design, and Michelle Millar Fisher, CUNY Graduate Center. The advisory committee consisted of Suzanne Preston Blier, Harvard University; Pamela Fletcher, Bowdoin College; Hussein Keshani, The University of British Columbia, Okanagan; Elizabeth Neely, Art Institute of Chicago; and Christine L. Sundt, Visual Resources. The topics and themes raised by the participants included publishing, teaching, research, archival practices, and knowledge dissemination, which demonstrated the fundamental interrelationship between the concerns of a “digital” audience and those of the “traditional” conference. The title of this paper indicates reflection on the event preparations and proceedings, an open-ended question to our peers, and a provocation based on the outcomes of THATCamp CAA 2014.