This paper analyzes the relationship between photography and machine vision by examining its preh... more This paper analyzes the relationship between photography and machine vision by examining its prehistory, as embodied in the art-historical photo archive. It characterizes the introduction of machine vision to the world of libraries, archives, and museums as a renewed (rather than wholly new) effort to mechanize or systematize art and its history. Assumptions and attitudes about photography embedded in the photo archive are therefore easily and often inconspicuously reproduced in efforts to study art computationally. Noting this repetition, this paper reframes the debate about art-historical applications of computer vision to emphasize the issues this technology raises about what constitutes art- historical work. The question is not whether we should use computer vision or computers for art-historical inquiry, but rather, what kinds of activities we ask computers to perform. Understanding machine vision in the context of its prehistory is critical for explicating its relationship to photography, and the role of photography and digital images in the study of visual culture more generally.
Anything Goes?: Berliner Architekturen der 1980er Jahre, 2021
Examines International Building Exhibition in Berlin in 1987 as both an attempt to transcend the ... more Examines International Building Exhibition in Berlin in 1987 as both an attempt to transcend the West Berlin's image as it had been shaped by the squatters movement in the 1970s and early 1980s. A reprint of a 2009 article for a catalogue related to a 2021 exhibition at the Berlinische Galerie.
Frank Gehry / Hans Scharoun: Strong Resonances , 2018
An analysis of Hans Scharouns' Philharmonie in Berlin for an exhibition comparing the work of Sch... more An analysis of Hans Scharouns' Philharmonie in Berlin for an exhibition comparing the work of Scharoun with that of Frank Gehry.
F or the past four years, the team working on the "Ed Ruscha, Streets of Los Angeles" project at ... more F or the past four years, the team working on the "Ed Ruscha, Streets of Los Angeles" project at the Getty Research Institute has worked to establish a framework for leveraging the benefits of collaboration and conversation between groups of people who work in different areas of expertise and communities of practice. Facilitating sustained conversations among art historians, art librarians, and technical specialists has proved a successful framework of mutual consultation between Getty staff and external collaborators. These conversations helped external collaborators better understand the kinds of metadata generated through the archival process and how it might be useful for investigating their particular research questions. In turn, Getty staff gained a better understanding of the kinds of metadata helpful to researchers, which helped determine our own priorities for this work. Moreover, new avenues of inquiry emerging from this collaborative project have outlined a path for articulating best practices in digital art history projects to come.
Positioning: Erich Mendelsohn and the Built Heritage of the 20th Century, 2024
This essay provides an assessment of the reception of Erich Mendelsohn and his architecture in th... more This essay provides an assessment of the reception of Erich Mendelsohn and his architecture in the US. In particular, it explains how Mendelsohn came to be associated with the Expressionist movement and how this association has led to an underestimation of Mendelsohn's influence on architectural modernism.
International Journal of Digital Art history, 2020
The last twenty has seen our reliance on digital technology for the practice of art history grow ... more The last twenty has seen our reliance on digital technology for the practice of art history grow alongside the emergence of what is called the digital humanities. Yet the discourse around digital humanities has thus far failed to articulate, explicitly or consistently, the true stakes of technologies’ influence on the humanities, much less art history. This article therefore seeks to reframe the debate. It argues that we should focus not on the digital or the computer, but instead on the but instead on the dynamic interrelationship between the institutions and domains responsible for the management of art historical information and those of the production of art historical knowledge. More specifically, it examines how recent technological developments are shifting priorities and processes within such institutions and thus shaping and reshaping art-historical practice.
Analyzing graffiti--the image, the act, and the space in which it unfolds--reveals the institutio... more Analyzing graffiti--the image, the act, and the space in which it unfolds--reveals the institutional structures which shape urban spaces, and this is particularly evident in the context of Wall-era West Berlin. Through an investigation of two Berlin Wall graffiti-based artworks, Gordon Matta-Clark’s 1976 Made in America and Keith Haring’s 1986 Berlin Wall mural, this essay considers how these artists used graffiti practice to reveal the economic, social, and political processes with which West Berlin was connected and which it signified. In analyzing Matta-Clark’s and Haring’s artworks, these works’ specific political and historical contexts, and the specific institutions that sponsored their creation, the author considers the relationship of specific examples of graffiti to the larger processes from which they emerged. The author furthermore argues that considering individual examples of graffiti, on their own terms, is crucial to understanding the relationships between their creation and the power structures that govern urban spaces in which they are created.
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 2015
This article examines architectural critique of housing and style as it unfolded in the East Germ... more This article examines architectural critique of housing and style as it unfolded in the East German journal Deutsche Architektur (German architecture) from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s. Through an analysis of articles published in the journal as well as primary source documents, Emily Pugh investigates the reception of newly built housing developments in East Germany by a group of influential socialist architects, historians, and critics who were then writing for Deutsche Architektur. Pugh highlights individual architects’ attempts to subvert or resist the control of state and party authorities and considers how these individuals’ efforts might have influenced the development of the East German building economy. She also argues that these architects’ understanding of architectural modernism differed from that of their counterparts in the Cold War West, having been influenced by political and economic circumstances specific to East Germany.
An analysis of the 1987 International Building Exhibition in West Berlin in relation both to the ... more An analysis of the 1987 International Building Exhibition in West Berlin in relation both to the city's squatters movement its global significance vis-à-vis the Cold War.
This paper analyzes the relationship between photography and machine vision by examining its preh... more This paper analyzes the relationship between photography and machine vision by examining its prehistory, as embodied in the art-historical photo archive. It characterizes the introduction of machine vision to the world of libraries, archives, and museums as a renewed (rather than wholly new) effort to mechanize or systematize art and its history. Assumptions and attitudes about photography embedded in the photo archive are therefore easily and often inconspicuously reproduced in efforts to study art computationally. Noting this repetition, this paper reframes the debate about art-historical applications of computer vision to emphasize the issues this technology raises about what constitutes art- historical work. The question is not whether we should use computer vision or computers for art-historical inquiry, but rather, what kinds of activities we ask computers to perform. Understanding machine vision in the context of its prehistory is critical for explicating its relationship to photography, and the role of photography and digital images in the study of visual culture more generally.
Anything Goes?: Berliner Architekturen der 1980er Jahre, 2021
Examines International Building Exhibition in Berlin in 1987 as both an attempt to transcend the ... more Examines International Building Exhibition in Berlin in 1987 as both an attempt to transcend the West Berlin's image as it had been shaped by the squatters movement in the 1970s and early 1980s. A reprint of a 2009 article for a catalogue related to a 2021 exhibition at the Berlinische Galerie.
Frank Gehry / Hans Scharoun: Strong Resonances , 2018
An analysis of Hans Scharouns' Philharmonie in Berlin for an exhibition comparing the work of Sch... more An analysis of Hans Scharouns' Philharmonie in Berlin for an exhibition comparing the work of Scharoun with that of Frank Gehry.
F or the past four years, the team working on the "Ed Ruscha, Streets of Los Angeles" project at ... more F or the past four years, the team working on the "Ed Ruscha, Streets of Los Angeles" project at the Getty Research Institute has worked to establish a framework for leveraging the benefits of collaboration and conversation between groups of people who work in different areas of expertise and communities of practice. Facilitating sustained conversations among art historians, art librarians, and technical specialists has proved a successful framework of mutual consultation between Getty staff and external collaborators. These conversations helped external collaborators better understand the kinds of metadata generated through the archival process and how it might be useful for investigating their particular research questions. In turn, Getty staff gained a better understanding of the kinds of metadata helpful to researchers, which helped determine our own priorities for this work. Moreover, new avenues of inquiry emerging from this collaborative project have outlined a path for articulating best practices in digital art history projects to come.
Positioning: Erich Mendelsohn and the Built Heritage of the 20th Century, 2024
This essay provides an assessment of the reception of Erich Mendelsohn and his architecture in th... more This essay provides an assessment of the reception of Erich Mendelsohn and his architecture in the US. In particular, it explains how Mendelsohn came to be associated with the Expressionist movement and how this association has led to an underestimation of Mendelsohn's influence on architectural modernism.
International Journal of Digital Art history, 2020
The last twenty has seen our reliance on digital technology for the practice of art history grow ... more The last twenty has seen our reliance on digital technology for the practice of art history grow alongside the emergence of what is called the digital humanities. Yet the discourse around digital humanities has thus far failed to articulate, explicitly or consistently, the true stakes of technologies’ influence on the humanities, much less art history. This article therefore seeks to reframe the debate. It argues that we should focus not on the digital or the computer, but instead on the but instead on the dynamic interrelationship between the institutions and domains responsible for the management of art historical information and those of the production of art historical knowledge. More specifically, it examines how recent technological developments are shifting priorities and processes within such institutions and thus shaping and reshaping art-historical practice.
Analyzing graffiti--the image, the act, and the space in which it unfolds--reveals the institutio... more Analyzing graffiti--the image, the act, and the space in which it unfolds--reveals the institutional structures which shape urban spaces, and this is particularly evident in the context of Wall-era West Berlin. Through an investigation of two Berlin Wall graffiti-based artworks, Gordon Matta-Clark’s 1976 Made in America and Keith Haring’s 1986 Berlin Wall mural, this essay considers how these artists used graffiti practice to reveal the economic, social, and political processes with which West Berlin was connected and which it signified. In analyzing Matta-Clark’s and Haring’s artworks, these works’ specific political and historical contexts, and the specific institutions that sponsored their creation, the author considers the relationship of specific examples of graffiti to the larger processes from which they emerged. The author furthermore argues that considering individual examples of graffiti, on their own terms, is crucial to understanding the relationships between their creation and the power structures that govern urban spaces in which they are created.
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 2015
This article examines architectural critique of housing and style as it unfolded in the East Germ... more This article examines architectural critique of housing and style as it unfolded in the East German journal Deutsche Architektur (German architecture) from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s. Through an analysis of articles published in the journal as well as primary source documents, Emily Pugh investigates the reception of newly built housing developments in East Germany by a group of influential socialist architects, historians, and critics who were then writing for Deutsche Architektur. Pugh highlights individual architects’ attempts to subvert or resist the control of state and party authorities and considers how these individuals’ efforts might have influenced the development of the East German building economy. She also argues that these architects’ understanding of architectural modernism differed from that of their counterparts in the Cold War West, having been influenced by political and economic circumstances specific to East Germany.
An analysis of the 1987 International Building Exhibition in West Berlin in relation both to the ... more An analysis of the 1987 International Building Exhibition in West Berlin in relation both to the city's squatters movement its global significance vis-à-vis the Cold War.
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