The Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS) cluster at SUTD is pleased to announce the 2022 co-winners of the Digital Humanities Award. The digital humanities minor program faculty selected this year’s winners in a blind vote. This year’s winners are:
- Brendan Ong Yen Kie, Keane Hi Zhe Wei, and Darryl Tan Jing Heng for their project entitled “Shadow Light Box,” which the team developed in conjunction with Dr. Zhenxing Zhao’s elective The Chinese Lyrical Tradition: Arts, Literature, and Landscape Design
and
- Jerome Heng for his project entitled “Greek, Buddhist, Gandharan: Studying influences on Gandharan Art with Artificial Intelligence,” which grew out of research drawn from Dr. Alastair Gornall’s elective Kings, Monks, and Merchants: A History of Asia before 1750
Dr. Zhao noted that Brendan, Keane, and Darryl’s project successfully used imagining technology to shed new light on the Chinese landscape poetry tradition:
“This project is a very original DH project. It is the first project to our knowledge that uses DALL imaging technology to visually analyze and visually present the landscape imagery of classical Chinese poetry. The visual analysis of this project further validates the assertion in classical Chinese literary criticism that the famous Tang Dynasty poet Wang Wei’s landscape poetry is aesthetically characterized by ‘colourless,’” Dr. Zhao wrote.
“Although this is an experimental study, the project succeeds in showing us that DH as a new discipline can be very useful for the study of traditional humanities and demonstrates its more scientific character. In addition, the project also successfully restored some of the lost human landscapes using new 3D printing technology, which also contributes to our ‘humanistic archaeology’ research. This project is a successful example of how SUTD combine scientific and humanistic research,” Dr. Zhao added.
Dr. Gornall praised Jerome’s project for its original use of AI and computational methods to offer a comparative study of Greek and Buddhist sculptural art:
“Jerome Heng’s project explored the potential of using computational methods (ImagePlot and Convolutional Neural Networks) to conduct an art historical examination of the cultural influences on early Buddhist sculptures from the Gandharan region of South Asia (what is today Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Northwest India). The scope of his project was highly original, and his work displayed a sensitivity to and critical awareness of the limitations of his methods,” Dr. Gornall wrote.
“Importantly, Jerome also kept in mind the historical importance of his research and explained the stylistic patterns under analysis within a broader socio-political framework. Despite the project’s experimental nature, the results of Jerome’s project were revealing. His work with Convolutional Neural Networks has demonstrated that it is possible to use artificial intelligence for subtle and fine-grained forms of art historical classification,” Dr. Gornall added.
The HASS department also congratulates the 29 student nominees for the 2022 Digital Humanities Award. These eight nominated projects spanned topics ranging from the environmental humanities to social media’s role in literary studies of Shakespeare:
- Ge Ziyu, Lin Yutian, Nicholas Andhika Cahyadi, and Gerald Wong Chian Hao, “The limitations of AI art generators in creating visual communication without the symbolic-cognitive capabilities” (nominated by Dr. Sayan Bhattacharyya – Form and Content in Arts, Science, and Society)
- Kenneth Scott Heng, Koh Hui Juan, Tan Yan Siew, and Ian Goh, “Multimodal Project: Kampong Connect) (nominated by Dr. Setsuko Yokoyama – Equitable Tech: Reimagining Our Digital Infrastructures)
- Teo Sze Jia, Teo Yew Xuan, and Seah Yew Hsing Sherwin, “Project iFinger” (Dr. Setsuko Yokoyama – Equitable Tech: Reimagining Our Digital Infrastructures)
- Dharmapuri Krishna Sathvik, Gargi Girish Pandkar, and Taiyeb Mustafa, “Nation of Smarts” (Dr. Setsuko Yokoyama – Equitable Tech: Reimagining Our Digital Infrastructures)
- Gao Xin, “DCGAN – Chinese Landscape Painting Generation with deep learning networks” (Dr. Zhenxing Zhao – The Chinese Lyrical Tradition: Arts, Literature, and Landscape Design)
- Hazel Hee, Joel Ng, Joshua Ng, and Timothy Ng, “Macbeth in memes” (Dr. Rhema Hokama – Global Shakespeares: Translation, Adaptation, and Performance)
- Bryan Tan (Chen Zhengyu), Sarah Loo, Sarah Wasifa Ferdousi, Ann Mary Alen, and Tan Zheng Yang, “Constructing the Digital Self: The Identity Matrix” (Dr. Gordon Tan – Digital Worlds, Space, and Spatialities: Geographical Perspectives on Digitalisation)
- Shawn Choo, Anthony Lim, Tan Zen Sheen, Claudia Lai, Leon Puah, “The digital self” (Dr. Gordon Tan – Digital Worlds, Space, and Spatialities: Geographical Perspectives on Digitalisation)
Congratulations!