Digital Arts and Humanities - Doctoral Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Browse
Recent Submissions
Item Activism and the authorial persona: narratives of addiction, depression and abortion in the writings of Marian Keyes(University College Cork, 2024) Butler, Maria; O Gallchoir, Cliona; O'Sullivan, James; Irish Research CouncilPopular Irish author Marian Keyes has sold over 30 million books, yet she has received little critical attention compared to her literary contemporaries. This study addresses this gap by examining Keyes’ work in the context of the rapid socio-historic changes that occurred in Ireland over the course of Keyes’ publishing career. The goal of this research is to analyse how Keyes utilises her writing to agitate for social change, focusing on her depiction of three significant Irish loci of shame: addiction, depression, and abortion. In doing so, I argue that literature can function as a tool to shift readers’ societal perceptions, thereby facilitating activism through literature. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s concept of “impression”, I posit that the entirety of the textual and extratextual object (contents, paratexts, and our impression of the author) forms a lasting impression on readers. Therefore, this thesis investigates how Keyes’ writings, branding, and authorial persona collectively contribute to her social activism. By examining the interplay between emotion (affect), cognition, and branding, I demonstrate how Keyes encourages readers to reconsider traditionally shameful topics. Chapter 1 lays the theoretical groundwork for this analysis, integrating the affective and cognitive literary approaches I apply to Keyes’ writings. This is followed by an examination of Keyes’ branding and the impact of her personal history on her readers. The subsequent chapters delve into specific themes: addiction (Chapter 2), depression (Chapter 3), and abortion (Chapter 4), each illustrating how Keyes’ personal experiences and public persona influence and contribute towards her activism. The study concludes that Keyes’ combination of emotional influence, cognitive education, and potential for reparative reading invites readers to reconsider the source of their shame and judgment, increasing social equality.Item Aura and chaos: computational creativity and contemporary art practice(University College Cork, 2023) Bourne, Catherine; Murphy, OrlaThis thesis addressed my aims and objectives by interrogating the potential of AI and digital fabrication technology as a tool and conceptual device in contemporary art practice. It explored the gap in knowledge and the dynamics of human-computer interaction between artists and computational creative systems, as well as the need for techniques and models that can capture and interpret complex artistic contexts. Computational creativity faces challenges in capturing subjective and aesthetic aspects of art, these are deeply personal and influenced by emotions, experiences, and cultural backgrounds. Integrating these elements into computational systems poses a unique challenge, as it requires addressing ethical and cultural considerations such as respecting cultural sensitivities, avoiding biases, and promoting inclusive artistic expressions. Understanding and addressing these issues is crucial for the ethical and creative use of computational creativity, specifically AI, in artistic practice.Item Digital Humanities: a bridge between computer vision and study of art(University College Cork, 2024) Xiao, Shuang; Murphy, Orla; Allen, Graham; China Scholarship CouncilFrom Humanities Computing to Digital Humanities, the development of digital technologies has brought many possibilities to the Humanities disciplines, including the exploration of painting research through deep learning. Such research currently focuses primarily on improving algorithmic performance, mainly derived from the field of computer vision, while technical barriers and disciplinary jargon make it difficult for Humanities scholars to engage in this type of research. However, effective interdisciplinary research requires communication and dialogue across multiple fields. On the one hand, the participation of Humanities scholars can make deep learning technologies more targeted in exploring painting research, thereby providing valuable research insights. On the other hand, Humanities scholars can critically examine deep learning, offering feasible suggestions for technological improvement, and identifying and avoiding potential ethical issues. Based on this research objective, this thesis conducts the following studies. The thesis first introduces the context of this research: “Digital Humanities,” “Artificial Intelligence,” “Computer Vision,” “Digital Art History,” and “Cultural Analytics.” and reviews existing research on deep learning in painting studies, critical research in Digital Humanities, and ethical issues in AI. Then, the thesis details the application process of deep learning in painting research in four parts: “Data Preparation,” “Model Training,” “Evaluation and Optimization,” and “Analysis and Interpretation,” each part including an introduction to basic knowledge, the application of technology (experiments), and reflections on deep learning. Chapter One, Data Preparation, introduces the basics of art image datasets, discussing how to assess, select, and clean image datasets. The experiment demonstrates how to organize datasets with code according to one’s research objectives, preparing for model training. The reflective section discusses the subjectivity and biases of datasets, the characteristics of art data itself, and the ethical, copyright, and technical limitations of datasets, proposing some targeted and feasible suggestions. Chapter Two, Model Training, uses CNNs as examples to introduce the internal structure of neural networks and various types of CNNs. The experiment demonstrates how to train a simple neural network model to predict the authors of paintings. Lastly, it reflects from a Humanities perspective on the potential issues that may arise during the model training process, including programming challenges, ethical issues and transparency of algorithms, the comparison between machine learning and human learning, and the effectiveness of transfer learning in art images. Chapter Three, Evaluation and Optimization, introduces methods for evaluating and optimizing models, and through experiments, evaluates and optimizes the model trained in Chapter Two. The reflection section discusses minimal computation, model accuracy, as well as issues with weights and biases. Chapter Four, Analysis and Interpretation, differentiates between model explanations from a computational perspective and model interpretations from a Humanities perspective. Based on the objectives and themes of painting research, it proposes five potential ways in which deep learning can assist painting research, including recognition of features and patterns, comparative studies, object detection, unsupervised clustering, and image generation, with detailed case explanations for each path. After completing the introduction and exploration of deep learning, this chapter ultimately suggests a research approach that combines Humanities and computing and discusses the value of AI-generated art based on current research trends. The biggest contribution of this thesis is in linking the fields of painting research and deep learning, which have vastly different research goals and methods, to form a research approach that allows for mutual communication and contribution. This approach represents a Digital Humanities research approach, promotes equal and dialogical exploration between Humanities research and Computer Science, where technology offers new insights and possibilities for Humanities research, and Humanities research provides critical suggestions for technological development.Item The socio-cultural terroir of Irish craft brewing(University College Cork, 2024) Day, Shawn; Crowley, John; O'Connor, Ray; Murphy, OrlaThis thesis provides a rich and unique exploration of the world of craft brewing in Ireland. One of the key concepts underpinning the research is that of socio-cultural terroir, which captures the all-important nexus between craft, practice, and place. Cultural geography provides a way of seeing and understanding the craft of brewing in all its richness, diversity and complexity. Foregrounding the brewers’ own experiences reveals how the craft is learned, affirmed and sustained. Applying emerging digital humanities methodologies such as textual analysis, information and knowledge visualisation to more conventional cultural geographic approaches allows for an exploration of how the journeys and values of Irish craft brewers emerge from, shape and (re)create meaning, identity and place in a rapidly growing and evolving community. Consisting of two parts, this thesis first seeks to bring a cultural geographic lens to bear on the craft brewing trade while carefully detailing the historical tradition from which it emerged, and secondly, it demonstrates how digital humanities practice can be employed to expand, augment, amplify, and enhance that exploration. The design, development, and deployment of an exploratory interactive platform to disseminate the findings facilitates an open sharing of the data, inviting further exploration, interpretation, and engagement with the research by a wider network of interested parties, including most importantly, the brewers themselves who have been a central focus of this research.Item Things in time: a digital synchronic analysis of manuscript newsletters (1575-76)(University College Cork, 2023) Kreuze, Wouter; Dooley, Brendan; Cosgrave, Michael; Irish Research CouncilThe development of a news culture in early modern Europe profoundly affected the perception of time. Because political conceptions are generally understood to be historically rooted, this also affected the way in which political identities and unities were defined. I have therefore analysed and described the news network as it functioned within one moment in time using two different collections. This description has been made for the timeframe 1575-76, as for these years the archival documents have been well-preserved and coincide with an important political event in Genoa that is symptomatic for how the news system functioned. As the principal news genre of the sixteenth century the manuscript newsletter (or avviso) was created according to certain formal and textual properties that defined it as a genre. Its very recognizable lay-out, repeated in every document, divided material into separate header sections consisting of different news items per paragraph. This makes the avviso very suitable for collection in digital repositories and relatively easy to submit to a digital analysis. The analysis carried out here has been able to clarify that most avvisi came from a handful of locations where they appeared with regular intervals. That these really were continuous serials, is shown by the fixed weekdays on which they were usually published. Furthermore, authors writing from the same location seem to have relied on the same sources as testified by the many similarities between the series. This further proves that we are dealing with a proper news network that was impersonal and international. The writing style of the manuscript newsletters can be characterised as descriptive and devoid of embellishments. Yet, in the sixteenth century, news writing was often considered a questionable practice, as it had the reputation of spreading lies. Speculative accounts, furthermore, were seen as an eschatological hazard. That might explain the descriptive writing style and the avvisi’s apparently sympathetic stance towards Catholic causes. That is not to say that the world was regarded from the standpoint of universal values alone. News was probably more than anything an enumeration of particular events. That comes even more to the fore where the news was placed within its historical context. The prime example here is the Republic of Genoa, that was represented as not existing universally and perennially but as moving between key moments in its constitutional history. Having said that, Catholic world views are clearly deeply interwoven in the fabric of the news system. The texts often spoke in terms of ‘ours’ whenever discussing Catholic forces fighting Protestants or Muslims. The newsletters in general had a bias favouring ‘the Catholic kings’ of Spain, who were perceived as being more supportive of the Catholic cause. The Republic of Genoa was perceived as being part of this Catholic world order just as much as other states. There does appear to be a tendency, however, to see the party that did not enjoy the sympathy of most avviso writers, in this case the Genoese nuovi, as lacking in Catholic fervour. We can conclude therefore that in the second half of the sixteenth century, newsletters, notwithstanding their descriptive writing style, spoke with a distinct, especially Catholic, voice. By regularly dispatching news, they harnessed a distinct Catholic identity and created a community of readers. The news, however, was by its very nature transnational and reported upon what happened in remote areas. Its main purpose was to make particular events known to the public, not to communicate universal values. Therefore, it appears that the system was already inclined to the integration of areas with different confessional backgrounds, although this development began to gain momentum only around the year 1600.