Transcripts for 'Validating portrait-sitting ontology requirements through interviews with art historians'

This activity is part of a wider project, entitled ‘Collecting and connecting portrait sittings: a re-evaluation of portrait-sitting accounts in enhancing knowledge and understanding of British portraiture 1900-1960’. 

The portrait sitting is an interaction between artist and sitter, from which portraits are produced. Textual accounts of sittings give useful insight into the negotiations between participants and the circumstances of portrait production. Yet the accounts have limitations: they are constructed, conventional and often incomplete. My question is: How can digital methods be used to understand and represent the portrait-sitting - a historical event, known to us through evidence - as a useable research object for art historians? The purpose of my interviews is to define a useable research object for art historians: to validate my understanding of why portrait-sitting accounts are useful, what makes them useful and what limits their use. I do this by consulting domain experts: art historians, specifically historians of portraiture, who are the intended users of this material. The output is a portrait-sitting ontology: a theory of knowledge about the sitting and blueprint for modelling sittings as research objects.

本活动隶属于一项名为‘收集与连接肖像摆姿势：对1900-1960年英国肖像摆姿势记录的再评估，以增强对其知识与理解的认知’的更广泛项目。肖像摆姿势是艺术家与被拍摄者之间的一种互动，由此产生肖像作品。对摆姿势的文字记录提供了对参与者之间的协商以及肖像制作情境的有益洞见。然而，这些记录存在局限性：它们是构建的、传统的，且往往不完整。我的问题是：如何运用数字方法来理解和表征肖像摆姿势——这一历史事件，通过证据为我们所知——作为一个可供艺术史学家使用的可研究对象？我的访谈旨在为艺术史学家定义一个可用的研究对象：验证我对肖像摆姿势记录为何有用、何种因素使其有用以及其使用局限性的理解。我通过咨询领域专家——特别是肖像史专家——这些资料的目标使用者来实现这一点。输出的成果是肖像摆姿势本体：关于摆姿势的知识理论，以及将摆姿势作为研究对象的建模蓝图。